The Metamorph
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Rated M for blood and gore. Harry Potter discovers his metamorphic powers at a young age... just in time since the Dursleys go too far. Escaping, Harry becomes an assassin and a thief, finding that he has a joy in murdering people, though mostly a murderer. Has Lord Voldemort done the right thing in unleashing hell on Earth? ABANDONED.
1. Chapter 1 The First Change

Disclaimer - I don't own the rights to Harry Potter. I merely own this story. This is a particularly dark version of Harry, but not super dark and unoriginal or unimaginative.

This is just an idea that popped into my mind.

Feedback is appreciated, thank you.

The First Change.

Harry winced as he stood in front of the mirror, wincing at the pain in his arm from where Uncle Vernon had grabbed him. His obese uncle had been furious with the latest piece of 'freakishness' but there were so many counts of him being a freak, it was hard for Harry to keep track. Last night Harry had endured his disgusting Aunt's hands on his hair which she attacked with a pair of scissors.

Uncle Vernon had this really stupid view about his hair, saying it was abnormal since it stood up everywhere, and no matter how many times Harry tried hard to comb his hair, it never worked. He didn't bother anymore. He simply didn't see the point if his hair was going to stick up on end. Anyway, his dear 'uncle' told Petunia to get rid of it, and she had. Like Vernon, Petunia hated the sight of Harry's hair, but she never elaborated why. Armed with a pair of really sharp scissors, the blades reminding her unfortunate victim of a sharp kitchen blade, Petunia had not wasted any time, taking sadistic pleasure in cutting every piece of hair off his head.

Harry made a face, reminding himself of how he'd appeared when he'd seen the nearly bald kid with a large piece of black hair covering his lightning bolt shaped scar. Dudley had laughed himself stupid at the sight, giving Harry a taste of the things to come. Vernon had enjoyed the sight as well, but then the fat pig enjoyed it whenever he tortured Harry, be it physically, emotionally or psychologically.

All night harry had lain in the thing that passed for a bed in the Cupboard under the Stairs, tears rolling down his cheeks, hating his parents for crashing their damn car and landing him here, but wishing he'd never been born. But he had dreaded the day, he knew that if he went into school he'd be laughed at all day.

But when the morning came, his Aunt's shrill shrieking had woken him up and he was dragged out of the cupboard by his aunt and his uncle had beaten him up for being a freak, because his head had grown back!

Harry looked at his hair, wondering if he had some strange disease or something that made his hair grow back rapidly. But he sighed and looked around the toilet. He couldn't be here for long, lessons resumed shortly and he didn't want to be here if Dudley and his gang came knocking.

The Dursleys had been forced to stop the beating which had gotten out of control, and he had felt many of his already fragile bones start to break before Petunia had noticed the time, and though the pair of them would have liked nothing better than to stop him going to school, they had to keep up appearances. Harry grimaced even harder. The Dursleys didn't care about his education despite their constant preaching that if it weren't for them, he would never have had the benefit of an education, but he knew that wasn't true. Once more he cursed his parents for being lowlifes, but even he wondered if that was true; the Dursleys loved lying to magnify their own importance, so he wouldn't put it past them to lie about his parents. The Dursleys had already told their precious neighbours he was a delinquent, and the massive clothes (courtesy of Dudley) reinforced that image on the street. It wasn't Harry's fault that Dudley was a massive pig in a wig who seemed determined to pick up health issues later in life because his parents were simply too stupid to recognise that Dudley was putting his life at risk, and besides who would listen to him about what was going on? He was already seen as a weird child of a drunk and a whore, and Harry couldn't see anything he could do to change that image.

Harry looked at his hair, closed his eyes and wished he had short, neat, close cropped hair instead of a shaggy mess. He sighed and opened his eyes and jumped back in surprise. His hair had changed. It was no longer a shaggy, unkempt mess; now it was short and close cropped. Eyes wide, Harry ran a hand over his scalp. It was real, it wasn't an illusion.

He closed his eyes again, pictured his original hair, and concentrated. When he opened his eyes again, he saw his hair was back to its shaggy appearance.

A slow smile crept over Harry's features as he pictured his face, and he closed his eyes and focused again. When he opened his eyes again, he grinned when he saw the face looking back at him. His hair colour had changed, becoming blond rather than black, his eye colour changed to a grey colour and his skin looked tanned.

Footsteps outside alerted him to someone being nearby, so he quickly closed his eyes. When the door opened, admitting another kid, Harry Potter was back to his original appearance. Harry recognised the kid as one of those who had been threatened by Dudley and the gang with a beating from hell if he ever tried to make friends with the freak.

Harry ignored him as he walked out. He had long since resigned himself to his fate as a lonely kid, and besides he wasn't sure if he even wanted to have friends. He had always sworn that when he entered secondary school, hopefully a place he could get away from Dudley, he would finally break through some of the conditioning the Dursleys had put on him and make friends. But he wasn't hopeful - as the years went by, he felt bitterness towards the very concept of friendship.

* * *

Harry winced with pain as he was thrown into the Cupboard under the Stairs, cursing his uncle for being such an animal. He could hear the hideous orang-utan lurch away, muttering about freaks being put in their place. Harry didn't know what it meant to be a freak, and he didn't really care since the Dursleys seemed to label everyone who wasn't a member of their disgusting clan a freak.

He turned on the light, knowing from long experience he couldn't keep it on for very long. But he needed to see if he could change anything else other than his eyes, hair and skin tone. He held out his right arm and began concentrating, and when he opened his eyes again he saw that his arm had become much longer, thicker, and hairier.

Once on a trip to London, Harry and the Dursleys had gone shopping, but he had seen a really big man with greasy, slicked back hair, a grizzled face, and arms that made Uncle Vernon's flabby arms look weak. One of his striking features were the tattoos on his arms; his Aunt Petunia might hate tattoos, but to Harry they were a sign of normalcy, because the person who had them was different. He might have been mentally conditioned by the Dursleys about how important it was to be normal, but to be honest he couldn't see why the Dursleys simply couldn't be their own people, and stop trying to outdo their neighbours. In fact, Harry was willing to bet that men, like the motorcyclist, didn't care one bit. Harry had always envied the man's strength, believing that if Vernon tried to hurt the man, it would be a fatal mistake on his uncles' part.

Harry closed his eyes and changed his arm back to the way it was, but then he concentrated again and pictured another arm. When he opened them again, he grinned when he saw that his pale skin which looked so white on a good day like a tin of paint was now a deep, black in colour. Running his other, really white hand over his darkened skin, Harry lifted his shirt to see how far the transformation extended, and saw that the effect ended at the elbow.

Cool, he thought to himself.

* * *

"FREAK! Cook breakfast!" Aunt Petunia snapped through the door, unlocking it as she went back to the kitchen, and Harry struggled to wake himself up. After leaving the cupboard to cook the Dursleys their breakfast, where once again he was forced to take scraps and a glass of water - Harry wondered not, for the first time, why he hadn't died of malnutrition yet. He didn't really get much to eat anyway. He walked back to the cupboard to get ready for another day of school, but just as he was getting inside Dudley came down, laughing his stupid head off at something, and happily shoved Harry into the cupboard.

Harry groaned and picked himself up…..and then he sighed; Dudley had pushed him and managed to make him trip and spill some of the water. Pig, he thought to himself, knowing only too well if he said one word about their precious 'ickle Duddydums' he'd get a beating he would be lucky to walk away from.

After getting out of the house, Harry followed behind Dudley and Aunt Petunia. His aunt had made it very clear to him she didn't want him close by, and she didn't care if he was kidnapped off the streets. After all, in her own words "who'd want a freak like you?" Personally, Harry didn't really care if he was taken away from the Dursleys; even if the kidnappers were as violent and as mercurial as the Dursleys, Harry knew he could cope since he'd been beaten up so many times.

While Harry followed the two Dursleys, thankful that neither of them seemed that bothered he was behind them at all for the time being, he asked himself and not for the first time, why the Dursleys hadn't just simply thrown him out long ago? Some people would say he was being ungrateful thinking something like that, to them the Dursleys were raising him since his parents had been drunks who'd died in a car crash, but the way the Dursleys worded it made it seem like they were raising the next Adolf Hitler. Worse, everyone on the street seemed to believe that he was being raised right, so as a result Harry never went to them for help anymore than he went to the teachers. He remembered the last time he'd tried, he had received a nasty beating (they were all nasty) from Vernon and Dudley, who joined in after eagerly asking his father.

And yet he still didn't understand why the Dursleys bothered to keep him; they complained about him, they beat him, they verbally abused him, they tormented him, they moaned everyday about having to keep him, they tried guilt-tripping him by saving if they hadn't taken him in he'd have been sent into an orphanage when his parents had died.

Harry felt he would have preferred the orphanage; at least there the chances of it just being him seen as a burden would be spread out onto other kids, and there was also the chance someone, somehow, would want to adopt him. But his mind was cynical. His life had made him a cynic and a pragmatist, and with each new day, each new beating, he lost a little bit more of what made a child a child.

* * *

Later that night, Harry sat in his cupboard again, moving carefully, each stab of pain in his back stoking his hatred for the Dursleys. It had been a fairly easy day, something that Harry instinctively became wary of. When he'd gotten back to Privet Drive, dreading going through the door but knowing he had better get it over and done with…. Only to find that things were quiet there as well, Aunt Petunia was ignoring him which wasn't unusual.

Harry had been dreading the return of Uncle Vernon, knowing that whatever was going to happen to him would not be good.

Uncle Vernon had been calm during the night, and it wasn't until Harry was inside his cupboard that the fat man had dragged him out, and repeatedly whipped him with his 'special belt' the belt with the most vicious buckle he could get, the whip that was bought specially for him. Harry had no idea how much time passed while he was whipped, his neck gripped tightly by the hand of his Uncle while the filthy animal whipped him. Petunia eventually called her husband off since Harry's screams were so loud that the neighbours had probably heard, but Harry doubted they would do anything; the neighbours hadn't cared about him before, never giving a thought about his agony, why should they start now?

Harry painfully dabbed his back with disinfectant, courtesy of his Aunt who'd just given it to him with a piece of kitchen paper, so he had to make it all last. Washing his back was difficult, but he managed to clean the wounds as best he could.

Harry hissed, wishing that his terrible excuse for an aunt had enough compassion to bandage his back, but he knew that he would somehow manage to survive, though it was amazing that he was still alive in this filthy hovel. He felt nothing for the Dursleys, nothing but hatred. As he lay on his stomach, wishing the pokey cupboard had enough air circulating through it to help in his healing, he thought about leaving the Dursleys, but he knew he would need to make a plan, find some money but knew from experience that the Dursleys would take the money from him no matter what he did.

* * *

I know abused Harry's kind of used, but there's method to my madness. Please review and tell me what you think.


	2. Chapter 2 The Plan of Murder

Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter, but then you already know that, unless of course I'm JK Rowling who's bored out of her mind, and decided to rewrite her books but couldn't and had to resort to fanfiction. Just kidding.

My thanks to the 43 people who has added this story to their favourites list, and the 53 who added it to their alerts. I hope you enjoy the future chapters.

Please leave feedback.

The Plan of Murder.

Moving stiffly, Harry went through Vernon's wardrobe, taking out some of the more simple clothes that should fit Hyde. Some of Vernon's clothes, like Dudley's, were built for large people who had a lot of weight in terms of fat rather than muscle, but they were adequate for now. He hissed whenever he moved his arms too far out, and he looked at his newly acquired scars before he looked at his reflection in the mirror.

His face, already pale since the Dursleys only gave him enough food and water to keep him alive rather than give him any valuable nutrition, had acquired a new facial scar to go with the lightning bolt shaped scar. Harry sighed and paused in his search for new clothes, remembering the events of only a few days ago.

Harry spent a lot of his time at school trying to avoid Dudley and his gang, and he'd spent a lot of his time learning about his morphing power - it was a little bit of a cliched name for it, but since he had no idea what it was really called, if it even had a name, it would still be called morphing - and getting an idea of what he could do with it and what he can't.

The first thing he'd noticed about the morphing power was he had problems with his equilibrium, but since he tried to avoid spending any amount of time in one form, it wasn't that much of a problem if he grew used to his new size and build. He'd discovered that as long as he spent no fewer than five or more minutes in a single form then he would be able to stand up without falling over himself.

Another problem was although his body changed - hair, skin colour, eye colour, mass (he found he was even able to change his own gender, which brought with it some curiosities he hadn't expected) - his clothing didn't change at all, but he supposed it made sense that his power would have limitations. Every power had limitations. Despite that little setback with the clothing - Harry would have loved to finally have clothes that fit him rather than endure the massive shirts, jumpers and trousers Dudley had worn and discarded just for him - he continued to explore his powers. Unfortunately, because of his experiments, he had made the mistake of letting his guard down since his mind had made the mistake of wondering off instead of focusing on what was happening, and Dudley and the gang had beaten him up. They had taken advantage of his carelessness and they had beaten him up, but this time Dudley had gone too far; he had taken a broken half of a bottle, and in full view in the middle of the playground, he had used the jagged edge of the the bottle to slice the new scar into Harry's skin.

The teachers had tried to mitigate the worst of the beating, but they were far too late though they'd never been on time before so he wasn't really bothered by that - in fact they were only just in time to stop Dudley becoming too clever, and using the blooded piece of sharp glass as a knife - his face was literally cut to ribbons in Dudley's attack, and the injury had barely healed. Dudley had been punished by the school, suspended. Some of the teachers had demanded he be expelled, that the shattered bottle was proof of assault with a deadly weapon, but the headmaster had been bribed by Vernon Dursley to keep Dudley in the school. Harry didn't have any faith or had any trust in authority figures anyway, but the fact the headmaster had been so easily swayed like that..…it had sickened him, and made him realise NO ONE could be trusted. It was a painful lesson for him being a kid, but it was the truth, and he would need to live with it.

Harry shuddered involuntarily as he remembered that night after the attack. The teachers at the school had done their best to punish Dudley and make the Dursleys see that Harry wasn't the problem, their precious son was. The teachers had believed Harry would be taken care of and Dudley would be punished for what he had done, but they were wrong since the Dursleys had passed the punishment and the coddling on the wrong kids. Harry had been the one to be punished, Dudley had been rewarded and coddled by his doting parents.

That hadn't surprised the young boy. He had tried to make the teachers see, but their desire to make things right with him had clearly not extended to shutting their mouths and actually listening to a word he said to them in turn. In the end Harry had accepted the inevitable, and when he'd gotten back, the bandage on his face had been ripped off, and if that wasn't bad enough he'd been whipped by that belt again before being shoved into the cupboard. So far it was the worst injury he'd sustained.

Now Petunia was making him do the housework while she and Dudley did nothing. Harry didn't have a problem with that, he didn't want to deal with either the pig or the horse, but they didn't know that while he'd been beaten up he had done something that they didn't know about. Harry had become so angry with what was happening to him, he had managed to choke Piers Polkiss without even touching him. He had just willed whatever it was that differentiated him from the Dursleys, and he had visualised Piers choking, and it had worked. It hadn't exactly been the best place or time for such an experiment, but it had been an experience.

Fat lot of good it did him when he'd returned to this dump.

But when he'd been in the cupboard, he'd made a plan.

He was going to escape, but in order to do that, he would need to ensure he couldn't come back, and there was only one solution to that problem.

He would have to kill the Dursleys.

And he didn't feel bad about it, strangely.

* * *

The plan was surprisingly easy to prepare and think about when Harry thought of it. Petunia had ensured he couldn't attend school, not with his injuries - she might hate him, but she knew that the teachers were paying a lot of attention to what was happening though she knew it would blow over with time - and Harry took advantage of that. Petunia hadn't stopped him from leaving the house to do some of the errands that the Dursleys had sold him to do around the neighbourhood, and Harry took advantage of that by visiting the library, ignoring everyone's stares at the scar on his face. Harry simply didn't understand it - everyone could see the injury, and by now some of the kids and the teachers had to have spread the news of what had happened to their family and friends, who likewise spread it about, so why didn't they do anything to stop the abuse?

It was still healing, but Harry knew it would make him look more like a delinquent, but now he simply didn't care what people thought about him. He hated everyone in this stinking town, and he hoped one day that he would still be alive to see this dump be turned into a parking lot. He'd love that to happen, yeah, he would love to see those arrogant strutters who posed and pranced around the town like they were better than everyone having to move or lose everything simply because they'd misjudged how important the parking lot was. No, not a parking lot, a railway. Yeah, preferably a big one slapped right in the middle of the dump.

Poetic justice.

Harry had spent most of the time he had in the library, studying up on the King's Cross fire. He had spent the last few days mulling over what to do with the Dursleys, but the fact was he had no access to any poisons which were the most logical solution to the problem or even a gun. In the end he'd decided to do two things - the first was to simply beat them all to death, but leave Petunia alive long enough for him to question her about his parents from a position of strength, and the second was to burn their house to the ground. The problem was the fire would be easy to contain when the firemen came onto the scene, but a year before there had been a massive fire in Kings Cross station. Harry had remembered hearing about it, but when he found the book he skimmed over the pages.

It didn't take him long to learn about the Trench effect, and he read the technical explanation of how it worked. Basically, if you confined the fire in a stairway, and if you lined the two sides with metal and had something like wood making up the stairs the hot gases from the fire would travel upwards very quickly, and when it reached the top it would be uncontrollable. The eyewitnesses reported that the fire had at first been controllable, but it had grown out of control as soon as the fire reached the top of the escalator. Harry was tempted to use the trench effect to burn down Privet drive since it would deal with the dead bodies he was going to leave behind in his wake, but did he had the metal needed to make it work? When Harry left the library and carried on with the errands, he came across the market in a nearby street. Harry wandered through the market, keeping his eyes averted as he walked through it. But then his eyes caught the hardware stand, the man had his back to Harry and yelling through his pitch at the crowd who paid him as much attention as a cat would pay attention to an ant. His eyes scanned the tools, knowing from long experience that the Dursleys were able to use anything from frying pans to belts as nasty weapons against him. Perhaps it was time for the lesson he planned to teach them to use that philosophy against them? While the original plan was to kill the Dursleys and burn their prison down sounded attractive, Harry actually wasn't sure if it was a wise move.

A plan came to mind very quickly. Most of the street and the town knew he was a delinquent thanks to the lies and propaganda the Dursleys spewed so he ducked into a nearby public toilet and, after he'd made sure no one was there, he changed his appearance. When he left the toilet his face had changed from pale and pasty to healthy, darkly tanned and smooth, and best of all those damn scars had gone, and he had changed his body into a more muscular one with longish blond hair with grey eyes. Harry smirked as he approached the hardware stand, and keeping an eye on the man and the people walking past, he dropped the things he'd picked up from the Dursleys and used it as cover to grab a gleaming and brand new claw hammer from the selection. He picked it up as soon as he could, but with everyone nearby, he needed to wait for a crowd around some of the other vendors, so it required a lot of patience on Harry's part before he could pick a moment where he was sure no one was watching him the claw hammer.

Once he'd sneaked the hammer into his bag, he picked it back up and left as casually as he could like he'd done nothing. The good news was none of the vendors had seen him since they were either busy selling and negotiating with customers or sorting through their own stands.

* * *

Fortunately for him, the errands the Dursleys had sent him on that day had taken him virtually all day, so when he returned he wasn't punished for spending all day long gone from the house. That was lucky for him since the Dursleys enjoyed punishing him simply because they felt like it. Harry took the claw hammer from under his baggy shirt and slipped it into the cupboard under the stairs. No one saw him. But before he went in, he grabbed a pen from his bed and with a bit of manoeuvring, he marked on the door where the lock was.

* * *

Harry snapped back into the land of the living as he sorted through the clothes. Most of them hadn't even been touched by dear old Vernon, so it was easy for him to hide it all, the problem was getting it into the cupboard without being seen. The good thing was the Dursleys believed they'd conditioned him to not touch their stuff. How little they knew him. He'd sold some of Dudley's old toys in the past for cash, but only the reasonably high quality stuff, not the trash that was smashed to pieces because of Dudley's tantrums.

After dinner and he was shoved into the cupboard where he'd have to endure listening to them laughing and eating like kings, Harry ignored them and he ate the scraps he'd been given. He'd learnt over the years that the Dursleys wouldn't feed him too much, nor would they bother looking through the cupboard to make the effort of cleaning it to make it liveable so his living conditions would resemble those unfortunate slaves crammed below decks on those ships that he'd read about in those history books he'd found in the school library. It was easy for him to hide things, and he'd used the living space to hide the old toys Dudley had discarded so he could sell them at school, and the crumbs of food the Dursleys had left him to keep him going.

Grabbing the clothes Vernon hadn't worn from the hiding place, Harry closed his eyes and concentrated on the form he was picturing.

When he opened his eyes again, his arms weren't just longer than they usually were, but they were healthier, stronger and older. There was a layer of hair on both his arms, and a look down at his legs and chest made him think he'd been made of a barrel and tree trunks. Harry ran a hand across his head, and he grinned when he felt only bristles along his scalp.

Deciding he didn't care about his physical appearance, Harry managed to tear off the shirt inherited from Dudley - it and the trousers weren't designed for muscular men who valued their strength rather than their girths - then he donned Vernon's clothes. Closing his eyes, Harry shifted himself in the cramped space, taking the hammer out of the hiding spot out.

Harry paused for a second, thinking that what happened now would either go right or wrong, and he listened to the sounds coming from the kitchen. They were still eating and laughing, but not for long he thought to himself darkly. It took some time to make room enough for him to swing the hammer, but he swung the hammer with enough force to smash the door. It took Harry three goes, but with his muscles that he had made sure were stronger than they were in their natural state he smashed the lock.

By the time the lock was smashed, Vernon had already wrenched it open angrily. "BOY! WHAT THE HELL-?!"

Harry grinned crookedly back at him. "You've just saved me the job, thanks," he said. He hadn't bothered changing his voice since he wanted the Dursleys to know who was killing them, and besides he wasn't sure if he could change his voice yet, he'd been more interested in learning how to change his body size, height and his features.

Vernon's face purpled angrily. "You freak! Turn back at once, and I'll give you the worst beating of your sorry freakish life!"

The very poorly worded threat and warning made Harry angrier than ever now, even with him transformed, holding a claw hammer, the stupid man was arrogant enough to think his threats were still terrifying. Harry waited until Vernon bellowed like an angry animal, turning the hammer, and used the claw dig right into Vernon's hand.

Vernon stopped bellowing and began screaming in agony, and he stepped back, cradling his hand with the claw of the hammer still digging into his bleeding hand. Harry got out of the cupboard. Petunia and Dudley were there, eyes wide at the spectacle, but when they saw the massive form get out of the cupboard their eyes widened and Harry could see the shock on their faces.

And then Dudley had to ask the most stupidest question he'd ever uttered, and that was saying something. "Who are you, where's the freak?"

Harry lifted an eyebrow. "It's a power I've found, Dudders," he said, grinning when the other two Dursleys stepped back when they heard his voice, they knew who he was, but Harry found he didn't really care if they believed it was really him. Why should they, the Harry Potter they knew was small, weak, barely able to fight back, but not when he was in this form. "I can change my appearance, and look at the result," he spread his hands out dramatically, and then his voice hardened. "Did you really think I was going to let you go away with your beatings? Or that scar you scratched into my skin!?"

Harry clenched his hand around the handle of his hammer, and he was about to swing it at Dudley's head when Vernon's good hand punched him in the face. Harry's head snapped back, and he looked at his Uncle just as his stupid cousin cheered, but it didn't last. Harry grabbed Dudley by the neck, and pulled him around to use him as a shield he could use against Vernon, and then he smashed the hammer against both of their heads in a flurry of blows before either of them could fight back though he received one or two blows, but because of his adult body the blows weren't that impressive, his anger fuelling each one, and the hammer was turned into a terrifying weapon with each blow smashing bone. When he was finished with both massive lumps of blubber, he realised Petunia wasn't there in the hall, but he had a good idea where she was.

He rushed into the living room and found her hunched over the phone, but he didn't shatter the phone with the hammer. No, he called for the power he'd used against Piers a few days before, concentrating on the entire phone, the cord, the handset and the cable, and ripped it away and then sent it flying towards the glass of the French doors.

Petunia looked in shock as the useless phone clacked nosily against the glass. She looked between it and her transformed nephew in horror, knowing that she wouldn't have time to fix it since it would take a while to run over to the door, grab the phone and plug it back in. There was only one thing she could do, no matter how much she hated herself for doing it.

"H-Harry, please don't do this!" she begged.

Harry snorted, surprised by her gall, surely she realised she was going to die tonight? "Why?" he asked.

Petunia blinked, surprised she was still alive. "Why what?" she stuttered. She was terrified she was going to be killed like her husband and son. Oh, her poor Duddykins!

"Why did you shove me into that cupboard? Why did you spread those lies to not just the neighbourhood, but to the teachers at that damn school, and to me? Why did you three beat me, and why did you take such enjoyment of it all?" Harry asked, holding up the bloodied claw hammer. "And I'd think twice about trying to escape or to lie; you're not going to see tomorrow or the next day. There's no way out for you. Let me tell you how this will work," he said almost amiably as though he hadn't just killed two relatives in cold blood, "I ask the questions, you supply the answers. And don't try anything, because if you do then you'll your skull will be mushed into pulp, understood?"

Petunia nodded.

"Answer my questions, and your death will be less painful, am I clear?"

Petunia almost cried at the threat, and Harry repeated himself in a harder voice, "Am I clear?"

"Yes," Petunia replied shakily.

"Good, now answer the questions I'd just asked you," Harry ordered.

Petunia needed only a few seconds to remember the questions, but fear was a powerful motivator, though she didn't know why she was bothering since she was going to be killed by her own flesh and blood. "You're a freak, you're a wizard. Magic," she spat out the word even as she decided to speak about the basics, "exists. There's a whole world of it. My sister, your mother, was a witch born in the family. My mother and father were so proud on the day she received her letter inviting her to that…..that school, we had a witch in the family."

Petunia was beginning to get worked up, and Harry immediately raised the hammer.

"Your getting emotional," he snapped, "stick with the basics. So, magic exists, does it? Yeah, that would explain a great deal."

He nodded thoughtfully to himself. While he believed his aunt, he was still skeptical about it being magic.

"Tell me more about this school."

Petunia was quiet at first, at least until Harry pointedly raised the claw hammer again. "I tried to get in, I wanted to prove to everyone I could be special as well."

"But it didn't work, did it?" Harry suddenly laughed scornfully as he sneered at her when he'd worked it all out in his head. "That's it, isn't it? That's why you hate me, you're jealous. You hate the fact my parents and I have magic and you don't. You're punishing me for something so base and stupid. You're like a blind man preaching how useless colour is. You're so finite its pathetic. How old was my mother when this letter showed up?"

Petunia was bristling at being called finite and pathetic. "11."

"So, 4 years from now I'll receive a letter from this school and I'll learn magic there. Just tell me straight - face to face - why did you let those beatings happen?"

Petunia didn't know what to say. She knew she was going to die anyway, her freak of a nephew had made that clear. And now her son and husband were dead. Harry lunged forwards with the hammer, clearly annoyed by her lack of answer.

"I won't ask you again," he threatened.

"I wanted you to be normal. I wanted to get at my sister, prissy perfect Lily," she couldn't help the hate or the sneer rising to her face and in her voice, "I'd wanted you to be kept so downtrodden your freak powers would have left you, and then I'd kick you out when you'd finished school, ensuring you didn't survive with anything. I'd hoped you would live the rest of your filthy life in misery - alone, cold, hungry, drug addled. You would have died. I wanted that. Vernon didn't know about my plans for you. He wouldn't have understood. I love my husband," she said, the fact she no longer had a living husband was not lost on her, "but he wasn't subtle. I hated you, the very knowledge of you. I had always hated my sister - always succeeding at everything - and having magic, something that I was denied. I never cared that you were a baby when you were dropped on our doorstep in the middle of the night by that freak of an old headmaster of that school, you were a freak and needed to be made normal."

During the whole of Petunia's rant, Harry had grown very still as each word was spoken, or spat out in some cases. After promising himself to make her death as truly painful as he could, he had a few more questions. "A headmaster dropped me on your doorstep? How did my parents die, the real reason, not the lie you've shoved down my throat for seven years. Tell me!"

Petunia was reluctant to tell Harry, but he grabbed her with his enlarged and transformed hand, and squeezed tightly, making her cry out.

"Tell me what I want to know."

"Your parents were murdered by this other freak," Petunia stuttered, seeing the anger in the boy's eyes - they weren't green at the moment but they were still intense. "He wanted to take over the country, that's what Lily told my parents before they were killed themselves by the freak's followers. The headmaster left us a letter telling us to take you in, or there would be consequences."

"Do you have this letter?" Harry let go of her, and she rubbed her shoulder where he'd gripped her so tightly.

"No, we burnt it."

Harry wasn't sure what he could say. It wasn't everyday he learnt that his parents hadn't gotten killed in a car crash, but had in fact been murdered by another wizard. "And this headmaster, what do you know about him?" he asked.

He would have liked more information about the wizard who'd orphaned him so that maybe one day he would make him pay, but he realised that Petunia probably didn't know his name. Still, he'd find out eventually.

"He's called Albus Dumbledore," Petunia said, not even getting his name wrong or even mispronouncing it. "He's an old and powerful wizard. Lily gushed that he was the greatest freak since Merlin."

Not even commenting on the idea Merlin was an actual person, and not really caring either, Harry looked at her. He had one more question. "This is my last question to you," he said quietly, "when I turned 11, did you really think I wouldn't get a letter?"

"We would never have let you go to that freak place-"

"You're not bright, are you?" Harry snapped, his voice cracking like a whip as well as any 8 year old's voice could sound whip like. "How do you know I wouldn't have come back here and made you pay for every minute, every hour I spent being whipped by your pig of a husband?"

Harry lunged for Petunia, left hand preparing to swing the hammer while the right formed a massive meaty fist. He grabbed Petunia and shoved his fist into her protesting mouth. She gurgled and tried to bite down, but he'd expected that, and so he just forced it in deeper, and he swung his hammer into her head with his massive transformed fist lodged into her mouth. Choked screams of pain came from Petunia, but it made little difference as he used the hammered into her head before using the claw.

A dark red stain appeared and grew bigger as Petunia's eyes began to flutter as she gradually began to die as her skull was shattered like an egg being slowly crushed by a padded hydraulic press. A puddle of blood was beginning to appear under her body, until finally Harry ended Petunia Dursley nee Evans' sorry excuse for a life by grabbing her head, and twisted her neck savagely to the side.

* * *

Harry looked down at the body of Petunia Dursley. He'd sort of expected himself to feel guilty or remorseful over what he'd just done, but he didn't feel a thing. He'd just killed his own aunt, his mother's sister, but he didn't care.

Picking his hammer up, Harry slid it into his waistband and walked back to Dudley and Vernon. They were still lying in the hall, in their own puddles of blood, but to his surprise one of them was still alive. It was Vernon, and he was trying to reach the door.

"Oh no, you don't," Harry said, taking his uncle harshly by the scruff of the neck, and he recalled all the times Vernon had done the same thing to him as he'd grown up and moved from one terrible beating after another. But unlike those times, Harry flipped Vernon over - it wasn't easy since Vernon was just as large as Dudley, but unlike Dudley his mass was more muscle than fat. When the two were facing each other, Harry saw the hazy expression in Vernon's eyes.

"Petunia told me everything about my powers," he whispered to the man, taunting him in his last moments; he found he loved gloating so long as he got right down to business afterwards. Harry didn't bother telling him that Petunia hadn't really told him anything beyond the basic "you're a wizard, Harry," but Vernon didn't need to know that. He wondered if Vernon was still with it enough to have heard the interrogation, but he didn't care.

"You were very stupid not to treat me like a human being, otherwise I could possibly have come back to make you pay for what you'd done. But unfortunately, I'd needed to kill you all now so I could escape. Goodbye, Vernon Dursley. It wasn't pleasant. But thank you for creating me."

Harry gently took Vernon's head in his hands, the fat man tried to move his hands away in protest, but Harry simply smacked the weakened arm aside and twisted Vernon's head until his neck snapped.

Looking down at the dead bodies of his uncle and cousin, Harry chuckled darkly as he thought about how easy it was to murder other people while assuming different forms. He went to his cupboard, well after tonight former cupboard, and pulled out his school backpack and pulled out his old clothes that were oversized. He would find far better clothes when he left, and he had all the time in the world now the Dursleys were dead. He looked down at the corpses and then back at the inside of the cupboard. The old cot inside the cupboard hadn't been changed for years, its sheets and covers were coated in blood that had turned dark with age. There were also crusted stains of blood on the walls in various shades of red, brown or black from all the times his bloodied hands or body had touched the sides. More incriminating were the coloured drawings Harry had made when he'd been much much much younger than he was now.

When he'd made the plan to kill the Dursleys and leave them forever, he had been indecisive about what he should do with them afterwards. Did he burn the house to the ground so then the job of figuring out who had broken in and killed them - how many people would guess or even think that he, Harry, had stolen a claw hammer and transformed into a man who was older, bigger, more muscular and killed them? But Harry wasn't sure if that was a good idea since the cupboard showed how abusive the Dursleys were. Harry had tried for years to get the attention of the teachers, the neighbours and the police about what was happening behind the walls and doors of Number 4, all without any success.

While it would be a kick in the teeth for those smug bastards who believed he was a delinquent and that he deserved all he received, he did ask himself if it was a wise move since the police could be on the look out for anyone who could have killed the Dursleys, and it was probable they'd try looking for him since they'd think he'd been kidnapped by whoever had killed the Dursley family.

Personally, he'd decided it was the best thing to do, and besides, even if he burnt down the house then people would eventually realise he was not actually here when the whole neighbourhood knew about him. He walked around the house, setting the scene for the police. He opened the French doors, then he tipped the dining room table over, sending what was left of the dinner things to the ground. Ignoring the sound of shattering crockery, Harry went to the kitchen and began gathering as much food as he could eat, and stuffed it all into his pack. Grabbing one of Vernon's old coats and some cash from the bulging wallet, Harry went back to the living room and got hold of some paper and a pen.

When his task was complete, Harry walked out of the house and into the night air.

* * *

Mrs Number 2 Privet Drive was taking a late night jog - she preferred the early mornings or late nights for her jogs since she was sure no one was around. She hated crowds since she worked in the afternoon in a busy part of London, and part of her work was going around the city, where she had to negotiate the crowds and the jabbering in the tube where you were pushed, nudged, kicked and shouted at to get out of the way.

As she jogged home, she knew that she would see the curtains of Number 4 open briefly just as she jogged past, and knew that Vernon and Petunia would watch for her separate reasons. She had never liked the Dursley family - they were like nearly everybody else on the street and in the neighbourhood, always trying to outdo each other with their stupid gardens without a blade of grass out of place, their new cars, but she didn't like the people. Vernon was a fat lecherous pig who talked about nothing interesting, and he was lecherous, too, but then again what could you expect when the woman you'd married was an ugly hag like Petunia?

Petunia Dursley was one of those people who gossiped about everyone and everything without even considering that no-one cared much for it all. She had long since realised there was no point arguing with the Dursleys about their son, in their eyes Dudley could not do any wrong, and she doubted that even if the fat piggy child who couldn't keep his hands to himself was pulled up in a police station and they saw for themselves who and what their son really was they would believe it. She had two children who had regaled her with the tales of how Dudley and his gang would go around the school and beat up everyone, though everyone knew his favourite target was his cousin, Harry.

Mrs Number 2 Privet Drive had never spoken to the boy, but everyone on the street knew him because of his distinctive features - the black hair, the green eyes, the pale skin, and the baggy clothes, and everyone talked about how the boy was weird and that he was a delinquent. She'd never spoken to him before, but the looks he'd sent nearly everyone was clearly that of a child wanting help, only no one ever did. It broke her heart no-one, not even her, had even tried to lift a finger to help the boy, and over the years those looks had changed. No longer did he even try to look at her with hope in his big green eyes, but he looked at her with another emotion.

Hatred.

He also sent the same looks towards his relatives. Mysteriously she hadn't been the only one who'd hoped something would happen, and she knew that the police had been and went with allegations of child abuse and neglect, but they were 'misunderstandings' that suddenly cleared up. But for those in the street, whatever was going on with Harry, it had gotten worse and they'd tried to stop it, but for some reason nothing happened. Even social workers said it was misunderstandings.

"Evening," she nodded breathlessly at a man who'd just appeared from the corner leading into Privet Drive. She didn't recognise him, but she assumed he was a friend of one of the neighbours who was going home.

He didn't even look at her, but she caught sight of a familiar emotion.

Resentment, but she was jogging by him too fast for her to get a clue of what made him resent her. But then she saw the open door to the Dursley house as she went past. Had that man come from here, and why hadn't Petunia or Vernon closed it? She leaned in, but her weight on the door made it open and when she looked around, her eyes widened when she saw the blood and the dead body of Dudley Dursley. She did the only thing she could do, she screamed.

* * *

Harry's eyes followed the woman as she jogged back to her home. He hadn't even known she jogged late at night, but then since the Dursleys ensured he was shoved in that bloody cupboard - a literal bloody cupboard - he didn't know the habits of the neighbours. No, they were no longer his neighbours, Harry thought, taking pride in that. He had just killed the three people who had made his life a living hell for years since he'd been dumped here as a baby.

But many old scores were going to be settled-the wizard who'd murdered his parents, the headmaster who had dumped him here without a care in the world, and whoever else was in his way. When Mrs Number 2 Privet Drive approached, she nodded at him breathlessly and said evening, but he didn't say anything back to her. He had learnt the hard way to not say anything to other people, but that hadn't stopped him trying to meet other people's eyes after learning that some people were capable of seeing distress in the eyes of a child.

Nothing substantial had happened, of course. Oh, a few police officers came by, but suddenly they seemed to leave without bothering to learn anything, so any respect Harry had in the law disappeared without a trace. And the beatings got worse. It was a wonder he was still alive after all of it.

She had been one of the few adults to actually show some concern about what was happening at Number 4, but she had not done anything, and judging from the look of surprise on her face, she didn't know why he was resentful, but since she didn't know he could change his appearance and didn't known who he was the mystery would exist forever.

* * *

One of the advantages of having longer legs was so then he could increase his stride, so he was halfway down the next street when he heard the sound of someone screaming behind him. Harry slowed down for a second, then he resumed his original speed. He hadn't bothered to close the door to Number 4, hoping someone in the morning would see the corpses lying around while he'd be long gone. Unfortunately, he hadn't foreseen Mrs Number 2 jogging so late at night. He shrugged. There was nothing he could do about it, and besides while it would've been nice for the Dursleys to be found in the morning, he couldn't go back there and kill the woman who'd just jogged past and happened to notice the open door.

It took Harry nearly forever to get to the local train station. He spent a few minutes checking the ticket machines and he managed to get a single into London. Harry sighed with relief as he palmed his ticket, he'd been worried he'd need to speak to someone, and with his childish voice that would've been a bad move which was why he'd taken that paper and a pen in case he'd needed to write something under the pretence he was mute.

When he boarded the train, he wondered what was going to happen to him next. He had just killed the Dursleys, stolen some of their cash, and now he was planning to live in London, but he wasn't sure what he was going to do next.


	3. Chapter 3 New Opportunity

Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter, just this story and I hope you continue to enjoy it.

New Opportunity.

Getting away from the Dursleys was one thing, surviving was another. Harry quickly realised that that while he was free, it came with a price attached.

One of the biggest problems Harry had the moment he arrived in London was finding his way around - the Dursleys had restricted the places he had had access to, and while he had lived in the dump all his life there were still parts of Little Whinging that the Dursleys had not allowed him to go, and because of his age, it had been really easy for them to keep him away from those places. The library had been one of them, but he'd managed to work his way around that, and they'd taken pains to ensure he stayed clear of the hospital, the train station obviously - they wouldn't want their unpaid labourer (slave) escaping their watch, and the police station. More of their brainwashing, though really Harry had no respect for the law after they had done nothing even when he knew for sure some people had complained about the Dursleys and their treatment. But now, he had a suspicion this Albus Dumbledore guy had something to do with it, and while Harry was curious about the reasons, he didn't pay much attention to them.

He had more things to concern himself with that what some old wizard was thinking. But when he had time to think about it, Harry was worried someone who was clearly powerful, respected, even if his unlamented aunt was telling the truth about what his mother had said about this Dumbledore, would manipulate a child. In the end Harry was faced with a growing number of questions he didn't have the answers to yet. What would he have to gain? Why would he allow the abuse? Was he aware of the abuse the whole time and allowed it for his own ends? What did he want?

Unfortunately, Harry didn't know the answers yet and he had decided to wait until he was invited into Hogwarts. But if Dumbledore pushed him….

London was enormous and the moment Harry had gotten out and boarded a tube train to take him deeper into the capital city he had fallen in love with it because there were thousands of opportunities for him, but he had to make sure he could live in the place. It wasn't easy; while Privet Drive and Surrey had been a prison for him, Harry had needed to accept the reality that at least there he had known where he could find shelter and where he couldn't. For the first week of his newly found freedom he spent most of his time living in doorways, hanging around Delis where he could at least find some old bread or other scraps of food. Water was just as easy to find, really.

Finally Harry found somewhere to call 'home', but he quickly realised he could lose it at any time. It was an old shop with a back entrance, and judging from the layers of dust that left deep footprints like he'd stepped through an inch of snow, no-one had been in here for years. Its stench of damp lent credence to that idea. It might've been dark, cold because there was no heating, but at least he was out from the street and he had a good vantage point so he couldn't be seen.

While he was living there, he practiced, or tried to practice his magic. When he'd made his escape from Privet Drive and learnt about the truth of his 'freakishness', Harry had been looking forwards to the idea of learning magic. Easier said than done, that was the reality. The main trouble Harry had with practicing his magic was he had no idea how witches and wizards used it, and that made his experiments hard to perform. He'd seen pictures of witches and wizards in fantasy books, saw them use staffs and wands, but he didn't know if there were spells that used a rhyme that sounded like nonsensical words strung together or if there was an actual language to it that he didn't know because no one had taught him. He remembered how he had managed to choke Piers Polkiss, and he had tried to move something using the same will power, but he quickly came to realise the only reason that had been a success was because he was being beaten up at the time, and he was furious with the attack.

And then Harry remembered the one time he had seen a Star Wars movie - the Dursleys didn't really encourage Dudley to watch those movies, they didn't have problems with science fiction, but they weren't a fan of the Jedi, the Force, or Darth Vader, and Harry now had a good idea why that was, but now all he had to do was simply try. What did he have to lose? And then he decided to recall all the anger and fear the Dursleys and the gang at school had heaped on him, so, he began to experiment. He began by placing very simple objects down on the floor in front of him, and then he'd try to levitate them or move them around. At first it didn't work simply because he didn't know how to move things with his magic, or if it was even possible - how was he to know if the magical world used magic in this manner? - but then he decided to picture what he wanted his magic to do while using the anger he'd felt over the years to fuel his efforts.

Harry blew out his frustration in a breath between his teeth as he stared at the three plastic bottles and the one busted coke can he'd picked up off the street. Another experiment, a failure. He had hoped to get through the basics a long time ago, and while he was learning, but he had made very little progress. He had managed to make a few things move, using the incidents where something happened whenever he was under pressure, but it was so hard to do something similar, or something different, on purpose.

All he was trying to do was levitate them. He had tried using hand gestures, like he'd seen Luke Skywalker use, but nothing seemed to work. He'd used a gesture, verbally said "Lift", and concentrated, but nothing had happened.

What was he missing?

Concentration, no, words, no, hand gestures - a bit, but no. What else was there? Harry asked himself, then he decided to call it a day, and then walked over to the cardboard box that served as a table and picked up one of the pamphlets he'd pinched, and although there were plenty of pictures in them, his mind conjured up images of them to make it all interesting….. and then it struck him. Use the anger he'd stored within him for the pain caused over the years.

Jumping up Harry walked back over to the bottles, and he held out his hand and pictured the coke can lifting up.

It lifted up an inch or so, or perhaps a few millimetres.

Harry lowered it down and cheered. He'd finally achieved something with his magic, but he quickly realised soon afterward he would need to do a lot more. Harry spent the next few hours practicing levitating the cans and bottles in the safety of his hiding place, and he managed to move one of them close to the ceiling itself. After he'd finished levitating the can one last time and managed to hold it there for a minute after picturing being pummelled by Vernon Dursley and the hate from Petunia, he began moving the items around the room, he also focused on holding one of the bottles in mid air, and with his mind he pictured the bottle spinning and turning so its bottom was turned upside down. As the days passed and Harry's life became split in finding and scraping for food and water, books to read and learn more now his wasteful education was virtually over, experimenting with his magical powers like creating his own spells to get by and practicing with his morphic powers. The good news about London was its sheer size and diversity which meant Harry could find new places to find what he was looking for. Between his practicing of his morphic powers and going out into the streets themselves where he encountered more people, Harry found himself pressed for choice about the number of physical traits he could adopt. Hair colours, skin tones, body builds, different heights, eye colours. The only downsides were the voice and the clothing. Harry was still forced to wear the crap he'd taken from Number 4, and he wanted to get rid of them at some point.

Another thing he had learnt about his morphic powers was he could hide both of his scars, which pleased him no end - thanks to the Dursleys, the entire neighbourhood in Little Whinging knew about the scar Dudley had cut into his cheek, and it was distinctive like the lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead. It wouldn't take the police long to realise where he was if they heard about him or a description was circulated.

Hiding the scars was very easy.

And necessary.

During his time in London, Harry became a pickpocket. It was inevitable, really. Falling into crime, but realistically he didn't think he could fall any further. He had recently murdered three people, one of them was his own age, but it didn't matter. It took Harry a few weeks to learn how to become a really good and proficient pickpocket, but it didn't take him long to learn how to break into a shop to steal clothes. That was straightforward enough - go into the shop for a few minutes under a different appearance, assume another one and break into the shop, and then get out again. Occasionally, whenever the police arrived, he had already escaped and assumed a new appearance, donning different clothes in the meantime and then escape without the police being any the wiser.

Harry studied the guy in front of him. He was a tall, lanky guy with a shifty look on his face, and looked at least 14, much older than Harry, but he didn't care. Harry didn't particularly trust him, but he was reassured by the feel of the claw hammer he carried, knowing that he would be able to smash this guy's head in without trouble. He didn't want to kill again so soon after he'd dealt with the Dursleys, but if this guy double-crossed him then it would be a quick funeral. The moment the thought entered his mind, Harry instantly squashed it. He was getting worried that he was starting to enjoy murdering others, even though he didn't care about the Dursleys and he felt nothing for their deaths. But if he was beginning to think about killing so casually, then that was something that concerned him.

"I hear you fence things," Harry said, pushing down his murderous thoughts.

The guy snorted. "Depends on what you have, kid," he replied.

"Give me tonight, and I'll show you," Harry walked off and headed away. A few hours later and Harry was walking through the streets, a large brick in his hand, marching towards a jewellery shop. Without breaking his stride, but aware of everything around him, Harry lobbed the brick through the window. Ignoring the alarm, Harry quickly grabbed as much jewellery as he could, and legged it.

With the sounds of sirens still ringing in his ears, Harry rushed back to the Fixer.

"Where did you get all of this?" The fixer asked.

"I just found it," Harry replied guilelessly.

The fixer looked at the boy, shrugged and took the jewellery. Harry smiled, he was still smiling in smug satisfaction as he walked away with hard cash, souvenir from one of his first forays into burglary.

For a year, Harry Potter had lived on the streets. When he realised it had been that long, he found it hard to believe. It was hard enough for him to scrounge around looking for food, water, money and shelter without realising how long it was. He had fallen in with a small gang of pickpockets after meeting his fence, whose leader, a man who was much older and far greedier, had taken him in. Harry disliked him at once the moment he'd met, but he had no where else to go, so he joined them just to learn about the way burglars worked. The man, who never even bothered to tell any of the kids who stole for him, was a lazy bastard who barely even left the abandoned cafe he was living in. He seemed to think he was some great master spy who had never gotten caught, but Harry wasn't impressed with his complex since he never bothered to go out into the world - as far as Harry was aware - and learn what was happening for himself, instead of relying on second hand information. When Harry woke up everyday, he would be delighted that he'd survived one more day, and one more night on the streets, recalling how Petunia had wanted her sister to turn in her grave watching as her child lived a life of hell on the streets. Ironic, he was living on the streets. But rather than being hopelessly useless, brought down by abuse and victimisation by the Dursleys, he was thriving. He couldn't find a better term to describe how well he was doing.

But with the gang, Harry learnt more about theft than he had recently. His techniques were rushed, hasty and crude by the time he'd met the gang, and he'd lacked finesse, and after he'd joined and spent time learning from them he began to wonder why he had never been caught. The gang members taught him their approaches, and very quickly Harry became good at distracting adults and letting someone else palm their wallets or purses, and not long after that he learnt how to break into a house or a shop, and he learnt the best places to find cash and jewellery. Such things would've taken time, trial and error for Harry, so it was blind luck he'd met a group who'd already done it all.

Unfortunately, he wasn't with them long before the police followed them back to the 'hideout', but that was due to bad luck and a careless mistake on the part of one of the other kids. Harry never found out what happened or who had made the mistake in the first place, nor did he care. He was one of the few kids to escape when the police broke the gang up. Harry had spent enough time with the kids in the gang, he knew that some of them, the majority of them at least had either run away from home because of child abuse, or they had grown up in care but escaped because they were tired of the boring adoption process which simply didn't work. The police thought they were doing the kids a big favour by 'rescuing' them from life on the streets when they should be concentrating on school life instead of stealing. How the reality was opposite. None of the kids wanted to return to their old homes, if they were identified that is, since for some of them had left their old homes years before, and some of them had somehow managed to get to London from their original homes. Their chances of not returning home themselves were between high and remote, it didn't really matter.

Harry didn't really concern himself that much with their fates even if he was sure he would think about them over the years to come, that is if he managed to get into the magical world. But truthfully he barely knew the other kids, it was a kind of throwback for how he'd been treated in Stonewall Primary. Dudley and the gang had made life a living hell for him, chasing him through the school, the neighbourhood, everywhere.

And no one had lifted a finger to stop it, the teachers seemed to take a stick their heads in the sand approach, the kids were too scared and let their parents keep thinking he was a delinquent. Many of those kids had followed the lead of the Dursleys, whether to keep Dudley happy or because they genuinely believed it themselves, or even listened to those who believed it and didn't care, and called him a freak themselves. Harry didn't know which and he didn't care what happened to them.

But his time at Stonewall Primary had made him wary of kids within his own age group, and he had learnt the long and hard and painful way to never trust them, and to ignore their problems since they couldn't be bothered to care about others. That was the way his brain had been conditioned, and while he knew the Dursleys actions were criminal, he didn't care. He couldn't trust anyone because he would be let down. He had once hoped the teachers would be the perfect shields between him and Dudley, and look where that hope had gotten him. The face scar was proof no-one was trustworthy. And as a result, Harry had lost any desire to form friendships, though he did form connections since he would need , but he didn't tell anyone anything major about himself.

* * *

Harry rubbed his forehead as he counted the amount of cash he'd collected over the last few days from break ins or from pickpocketing. He wasn't doing badly money wise, and from many of the burglaries he was carrying out it was a good result, maybe not as good as a bank heist, but it wasn't any something to sneeze about.

When he was finished, he rolled the money up and stuffed it all into a sock. He was just about to open his backpack and take out some of the food he'd managed to find. It amazed him, it really amazed him, how much food supermarkets threw away simply because no one would buy it, but Harry found a use for it. It was a new thing for him after he'd wandered into the backyard of a Waitrose. High quality produce, and idiots were not buying it, or eating it.

While Harry was eating his way through a bunch of bananas and an apple, he heard the sounds of voices. Harry almost jumped up, but he stilled that instinct and he kept very still, listening.

One of the voices asked, "How do you know he'll be here?"

He sounded tense, a complete opposite of the other. "He'll be here."

"How do you know?" The other repeated, but whined.

"Shut up."

Another voice said from the darkness, a slick voice. "The pair of you shut up. I'm here."

Harry looked around his hiding spot, and glanced over the box he'd had his back to for the last hour or so, and he saw three men - two of them were smaller than the third, but Harry had learnt size was no guarantee of power. He got onto his hands and knees and began crawling away from his box. Occasionally he came across pieces of glass and small shards of concrete, but he managed to avoid them after he'd cut himself on one of them. He crawled closer to them, sticking to the shadows so they wouldn't see them. Every instinct he had in his body told him these people were to be avoided.

This had all the hallmarks of a meeting between criminals, and Harry had enough experience to know he should keep very quiet. If they caught him, he would almost certainly be killed. He didn't recognise the men, it was too dark for that, but he didn't care who they were.

"There you are, where've you been?" The larger man who'd bee whining said. Harry hadn't been able to see much of them at first, and while the three of them were still not completely visible in the rather dim light he could tell the large man had a bald head that shone like polished gold.

"What happened, Carson?" The man who was with the big bald man. "What happened to the drug shipment?"

Oh no, Harry thought to himself, glad that he'd made the decision to be quiet, even though it was simple common sense.

"Someone talked," the slick man replied. "The police were at the rendezvous, everyone was caught. Only one of my men managed to get back to tell me what happened, I'm still investigating it to make sure something similar doesn't happen again."

"When will the next shipment arrive?"

"It won't," Carson's reply was simple and curt indicating he wouldn't be swayed, and they way his eyes glinted showed he wouldn't accept an argument. "Whoever told the police where the shipment would be doing more than just talk about a rendezvous. They provided the police with details about where the labs were, how big they were, how many were working there, stuff like that. The operation is going to be closed down. I won't be able to sustain a business like that again if the police are going to be just round the corner."

Harry knew the other two men weren't going to like that, and he was right - they instantly started protesting.

"Now hold on a minute," the bald guy snapped, "we paid good money for you to get started, and we want our product-"

"There is no product," Carson's voice cracked like a whip. "The police snatched everything in the labs. They also have a list of some of your dealers. Whoever's talked has a big mouth, I suggest you two start looking into your own gangs carefully and properly to see if there's someone who's talking to the police. Don't start a witch hunt. You'll do more harm than good."

The three men talked for some time and eventually left, leaving Harry behind.

* * *

After listening to the drug bust, Harry continued practicing his magic and his morphing powers. He'd managed to get his hands on a voice recorder, and after making recordings of his voice, he began concentrating on different voices, and forcing the change whenever he altered his appearance.

It took some doing, but Harry managed it in time, and he also began changing his approach with how he used his magic. He started using his mind to affect the magic around him after becoming aware of it.

Like many things - the morphic powers, the sudden impulse to murder the Dursleys - it was almost pure luck he discovered that he could feel magic, though it only came about because it had been hard for him to practice magic without anything like a wand; he was sure that was how the wizarding world practiced magic, unless they spent years and years teaching students the basics like moving a bean an inch to the right with nothing but a thought.

Although his earlier work was a breakthrough in itself, Harry felt he could be much, much better. He began practicing with his mind, and he unlocked his potential. Well, it took time at first, but Harry continued pushing, and once he'd discovered there was magic in the air - it amused Harry a little bit when he imagined what the Dursleys would've said if they knew magic wasn't just something contained in wizards and witches, but was in the air around them - it didn't take long for him to learn how to use his own magic and his mind to manipulate the magic around him.

Granted, it took him a while to get used to the new power he now possessed, but he was thankful for an opportunity to learn something completely different.

With this new power, Harry learnt how to become invisible with just a thought, though whether he'd use the power was up for debate but even the morphic power probably had dozens of limits he didn't know about yet, but it was still useful. He also learnt how to push and consolidate his power, and he began breaking into libraries and video stores, and began collecting magical movies. He watched those movies in the hope of gaining some inspiration about how he could use his powers, but some of them were so campy and rubbish he didn't bother, but the others which were more serious provided him with the inspiration he needed.

As he went along, he learnt how to create water from the very moisture in the air itself. He also learnt how to heat it to create steam, and then did the opposite, and learnt how to freeze it to create icicles. While that was impressive enough, one of Harry's most favourite powers was being able to manipulate locks. All he had to do was brush his finger lightly over a lock, let his magic shift the pins and turn the tumbler, and the door would open.

Harry even learnt how to stop the heart of anything with his magic. He discovered this power when he encountered a group of rats in one of the places he was staying in at the time, and he closed his eyes and focused his mind on their hearts, and he popped them. Okay, so it wasn't necessarily a clean death, but it was still effective before he began using his magic to crush their larynxes or their skulls.

Despite all those successes and how his knowledge of magic and his skills grew, Harry began to feel bored. He had been on the streets for too long. He wanted to have new opportunities. He was sick and tired of living on the streets, having to scavenge for food and water, having to move between one dosshouse to another, having to plan them in advance in case they became a murder site all of a sudden. With that in mind, he began thinking through some ideas. The most obvious way for him to turn his life around was through a major heist, and with his new powers there was much he could do with them, the only downside with that idea was where he should actually burgle. Jewellery shops were nice, so to where banks - jewellery shops were the easiest, as were bookies when you thought about it, but banks were much, much bigger and offered more in the way of cash. Problem - some of them might not even have a vault. Problem two - the banks were like mini Fort Knox's and the security would be tight, so how would a kid of Harry's size manage to get in and take nearly everything? One way was to find a sewer running adjacent to a bank vault, and magically blast his way in. That would work. He'd need to make sure the bank even had a vault, and had a sewer running nearby.

How would he find that out? It didn't take long for him to imagine how he could do it.

Under disguise once more - this time dressed as a respectable and somewhat rich looking man (Harry was pleased he'd found he could change his clothing with his magic - he felt pleased at having to steal his clothes because he was fulfilling a lifelong dream of his to abandon the castoffs Dudley had worn, but there was always so much to carry whenever he left one of the places he lived in), he walked into a jewellery shop. After making small talk with the shopkeeper, Harry used his magic and gently prodded the man's mind.

The shopkeeper had no idea what he was doing, thankfully, and in less than ten seconds Harry knew the security number for the alarm. It was the date of his wife's death, apparently the two had married when they'd thought they in love but over time the spark died out. Harry sneered mentally, he didn't care about the misfortunes of others, he just wanted the information. After leaving with a small ring on his finger, Harry walked down the street.

Later that day, Harry returned to the jewellery shop in the dead of night. Pausing outside the shop for a moment, Harry used his magic to shut down the cameras, and he bent down and rubbed a finger across the lock of the shutters, letting his magic manipulate the lock mechanism and gently lifted it before doing the same to the door lock.

Once inside, he quickly tapped out the numbers of the security code.

When that was done, Harry slowly but methodically began stripping the shop. Once he was finished with the necklaces and rings, he went to the inner door and unlocked it. When he returned, he was happy that the man's security was basic, and the combination number was easy to learn. The inside of the safe was divided into sections with the top shelves holding the shops money and some diamonds.

* * *

For the next month, the police in London were staggered by the number of thefts which were so clean it defied belief. Most criminals sometimes used bump keys, crowbars, saws to open doors and barge inside. Those were easy to find and put away, but this burglar was different. He seemed to know everything about the shops - the layouts, the security codes for the alarms, safe combinations, and he was subtle enough to not make a lot of noise that would alert the neighbourhood. Usually when someone heard the sound of shattering glass or a drill, they would get in touch with the police, but this thief was much more cunning than others who relied on the smash and grab routine.

The police spent the whole month running around the city trying to find out more about the thief. They used all their contacts and their informants to get a whisper for the thief. But even the informants were baffled. They also told the police no one in the underworld knew anything about the burglaries either, and that some of the crime families in the city were furious because some of those shops were under their protection. Some of the police force began thinking that if those families learnt who the burglar was then it would be a good thing because then they'd have a cast iron case to lock away both problems.

* * *

Harry had needed to stop himself from laughing when he had looked into the mind of another jewellery shop owner. He had known which shops were under protection from families like the Mackenzies and the Flynn's, but he hadn't cared because he was able to hide himself from the families. Now they were beginning to make threatening noises and the battle drums were beating. They would huff, they would puff, and they would blow the city down trying to find him, but they wouldn't. For instance the Flynn family were posting some of their mob at this shop and a few of their others, and they weren't being subtle about telling anyone about it either. Harry had known about it for a short time now, but he didn't care. What could they or the police do about his plans? Still, Harry mused to himself after giving himself time to think; he might be putting a bit too much stock into the belief he was invincible. He might be a wizard, but he was still vulnerable.

Maybe after this heist, he would take a short break? If he managed to get away to the coast, spend some time by the sea and finally fulfil another long wish which was to finally see more of the world than the soulless suburbia of Little Whinging, he would finally open his mind to new possibilities.

Later that night, Harry stood in a darkened alley and had to stop himself laughing out aloud again at the sight of the car that was oh so discreetly parked outside the shop for the night. He wondered if the Flynn's had any plans to keep this up for as long as the burglaries went on. When he went behind the shop he saw that there were three men out there as well, but that wasn't a problem for him.

He appeared in front of the men, but he froze them magically. "Stop! You never saw me," he said, focusing all his powers on them, he was using the same technique of pushing his powers into the minds of the men. "Now you will walk to the back of the alley, and one of you will say you heard something, and you look outside, and then you will report it was just a cat knocking over the top of a bin. Understood?"

"Yes, we understand," the men said in stereo.

"I will be coming out of this door," Harry went on, pleased by how the spell was holding on these men. "When I walk through it, you freeze and await my orders. Understood?"

"Yes, we understand," the men repeated.

"You will carry out my commands when I click my fingers," Harry instructed, "for now you will stand still."

Bending over the lock he unlocked it, and stepped into the doorway. He clicked his fingers.

"What was that?" One of the men shouted.

Harry closed the door quietly, and proceeded to the shop's sales room. He moved carefully, opening everything he could and emptying it all, and trying to be as quiet as he could. It would take only one wrong move, and those guys outside would come bursting in. Harry didn't plan on being here long, he only wanted to grab as much as he could and get out to prove a point. When Harry felt he had as much as he could get away with, he walked back out into the yard. He was looking forwards to this. The minute the men he'd left behind a few minutes ago noticed him, they froze at once, and he grinned at them.

"Lift your right hands," he ordered to make sure the hold was secure.

The men did as they were told. Not satisfied Harry ordered them to take out their weapons slowly. "Kill yourselves on the count of four," he instructed. "One…..two…..three…. cancel order. The hold is secure. Now, you are going to chase a burglar, two of you will chase the burglar through the streets to the nearest tube station and one of you will be going to the car to let the others know. I will choose which of you will be chasing the burglar, whom you'll not meet or see, because you'll lose them at the nearest station, and who will alert the others. Understood?"

"Yes, we understand."

After Harry chose the man who'd alert the ones in the car, he clicked his fingers.

"After 'im!" One of the men shouted as an imaginary 'burglar' ran out. And they smashed through the gate, slamming the door behind them. Harry chuckled as he listened to them, feet pounding down the streets.

"You, tell the others, we've got our burglar," another one shouted.

Harry smirked and walked out of the yard.


	4. Chapter 4 A Trip Down South

Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter.

Please leave feedback.

A Trip down South.

On the train bound for Brighton dozens of commuters were boarding and settling into their seats. Some of them were holidaymakers just wanting to have a good time by the seaside and tan on the beaches, for some it was just a business trip or a simple commute home. After checking the old teddy bear in his rucksack was safe, Harry winced as he felt the pain in his ribs as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, doing his best to remain unseen by the other passengers on the train. One of the advantages of his morphing powers was being able to change his appearance and merging with the crowd, but if he drew unwanted attention by grimacing at pains like he'd received broken bones or slashes to his face, then they would become suspicious. But the pain in his ribs was unimaginable, and the bruises, disguised of course, throbbed like a generator.

A few days after he'd robbed one of the last of the jewellery shops that were under the protection from one of the gangs - protection rackets were so incredibly easy to find because if you burgled them and got away with it, then you made the gangs look like idiots - Harry was attacked, but he wasn't attacked by one of the gangs he'd burgled from. He was lucky that his precautions to keep his identity a secret had prevented the worst of the criminal fraternity from finding him, but while that was the case, that hadn't stopped him being the victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; that was the problem with kids living on the street, and trying to remake themselves into the next big guys, new gangs that would wave a knife around without considering the consequences of their actions. Harry didn't really care about what happened to them anymore than he truly cared what happened to the residents of Privet Drive after the Dursley's deaths, he just thought the gang were wasting their lives since there were dozens of kids from different countries who were trying to carve out reputations for themselves with blood.

Harry wasn't even trying to provoke them, hell, he didn't even know who they were, he had never met any of them before, and he'd never heard of them either- he had been in a few street fights during his time in London, and while he'd been beaten once or twice because he hadn't dared to try to change his appearance because he had felt the less people gathered about them, the better, but Harry did try to change his muscles to make them stronger, more robust, but he rarely did that - he preferred to get stronger the old fashioned way, by using hard work, and that was where the trouble from his upbringing at the hands of the Dursleys held him back. The Dursleys had not wanted him to be strong enough to survive life on the streets despite all of those stupid chores they'd made him do, some of which even a Nazi would consider to be too extreme, and that meant stunting his growth. Harry didn't know the first thing about getting his body into a more healthy state, but he did feel stronger since he was breaking into supermarket yards and stealing food and water from shops that had been left out. They dumped more food in a week than Harry had eaten in that wretched cupboard in an hour.

Harry had just been walking down the street somewhere around Hackney, looking for a place to doss after he'd committed that last burglary when he'd met the gang by accident. They'd been in the process of kicking some old man to death, and the reason Harry hadn't heard anything was because of the traffic nearby, along with some roadworks in the distance that were pretty convenient, and besides the old man was so feeble and breathless anyway that even if he had managed to cry out Harry would not have managed to hear a sound.

The gang members, all wearing cool and trendy jackets and sneakers, had lookouts so it didn't take long for them to realise he was there, and Harry had taken off down the street, and the gang had followed. All of his instincts were to flee and not fight - Harry wasn't a coward, he'd fought and won against his fair share of fighters, but they were older than he was, stronger and there were at least 7 of them. He had taken off faster than a rabbit being chased by a fox, poor metaphor since foxes usually won, but he'd run as fast as he could. But the gang were relentless and they knew the area better than he did. Whenever he found himself chased, Harry would try looking for places like doorways, bins, or even steps leading upwards to hide in a shadowy corner to wait his pursuers out but the gang put paid to those plans. Every time he'd turned a corner, a few of them would split off from the main group to head him off, and they would join the others as soon as they could. It didn't take them long to catch up with him either, and then they had cornered him, and like a wild animal being cornered Harry had lashed out. He had taken his hammer out and a flick knife and he'd managed to surprise them with few blows and slashes which broadcasted a message to the gang, but one of the gang had punched him hard in the back during the struggle, giving another the courage to deliver two nasty blows to his front. While Harry was out of it with the pain, another gang member had thought he had been weakened enough to grab the knife and hammer away from him, something the boy had refused to allow, but it was almost too late.

The other kid, another boy who looked to be two or three years older than Harry himself, was almost on top of him ready to take both of Harry's weapons away from him, but Harry had pushed the pain aside enough to smash the hammer right on the kids hand, shattering the bones.

After that it was a case of fighting out of desperation, and in the end Harry won, though he wouldn't consider it to be a victory. The gang, bloodied, some of them sporting slashes across their faces and hands and arms, one or two cradling their hands and crying like mewling babies ran off, leaving Harry behind to lick his own wounds.

Once he'd found a new place to doss - far from the area the gang lived in, but still an unknown place - he was exhausted. He'd been travelling for nearly a night, wondering if any of the gang had decided to call the police, though he was certain they lived with their parents - their clothes were too new for them to be living on the street. Judging from their attitudes and their actions he didn't think they were pros either. After he'd settled down for a bit, Harry had decided he was tired of London for a while, so he spent the next couple of days getting ready to leave, making sure to take the jewels he'd taken from the last couple of burglaries with him. After grabbing a ticket, he'd boarded a train bound for Brighton.

Sitting in his seat and having his ticket ready, Harry wished he knew at least someone in the medical community who could give him something for the pain, but the good news was the blows he'd taken from the gang were in a minor league compared to Vernon Dursley's punches but they were more frequent than the lumbering blows launched by the fat pig, and he knew how to recover from something like that. He sneered as he thought about the gang themselves, and he hoped that if they did happen to live with their parents then their actions came back to haunt them. The old man was sure to still be alive unless he'd taken all he could have and died, if that happened there there would be a manslaughter charge levelled against them.

Despite the pain he'd taken, Harry enjoyed the trip down to Brighton. The sights of the countryside with lush green fields made him realise just how much the living with the Dursleys had deprived him of, and he was looking forwards to seeing the sea for the first time in his life.

* * *

Once the train had slowed into Brighton station, Harry had stepped off and into the bright light of the sun. He squinted a little and used a hand to shield his eyes, but he moved on. Brighton smelt like a mini London - the stenches from the numerous people, aftershave, deodorant wafted through the air into his nostrils, along with the smell from the cafes, the restaurants, and the kebab shops, all mixed together with the smell from the traffic. That wasn't hard - the road leading down from the station towards the sea had more space for cars, buses, vans than it did for pedestrians. Harry caught a whiff from the engine off a screeching motorcycle, and he couldn't help but think that it was no wonder the planet was becoming polluted.

As he approached the sea, Harry wondered what he was going to do in a few years time. He was continually experimenting with his magical powers, but while there were some things he found easy enough to do, other things were too difficult for him to master. His morphing skills were great, especially since they stopped him being noticed and they didn't wear him out too much. Whenever Harry devoted a lot of his time to learning how to go really deep with his studies, he became tired very easily. Some things were easier like manipulating locks so they opened and he didn't need a bump key. Looking into someone's mind for security details was simple, didn't exhaust him. Harry was in two mind about it, for one thing he was tempted, really tempted to not bother learning magic except to practice what he already knew and just wait for Hogwarts to contact him. He felt that was better than tiring himself out. He didn't want to run the risk of becoming exhausted only for another gang to stumble across him at his weakest, and then kill him.

Another thing that was on his mind was having a place of his own, like a flat or a house. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life living on the streets, fulfilling his aunt's plan for him to live on the streets when he was deemed old enough to be kicked out - he still could not understand his aunt's stupidity; she must have known she was wasting her time trying to beat the magic out of him, so why bother?

Harry quickly shook his head, trying hard not to think about his bitch of an aunt and bastard son of a whore for an uncle, and focused on the here and now, and tried to return his thoughts back on getting a house. He was certainly getting a lot of cash prepared for the day he could move into a new home, the only problem was he was still a kid.

He wondered if his parents had left him a home, but he wouldn't know for sure until he'd left for Hogwarts. And then he had to think about the headmaster - what was his game? Why would a headmaster, of all things, decide to place a child with a bunch of child abusers? What was the point? One question kept coming back out of that pantheon - why would a headmaster place a child with a bunch of child abusers, a magical child that was placed with people who hated magic? Surely he wasn't that ignorant. Maybe he was, maybe he'd hoped that the Dursleys would take care of him (Harry), but why the Dursleys? Why not his paternal grandparents and maternal grandparents? What if he had family on either side that could take care of him? That was something that he couldn't get out of his mind.

Harry was so distracted that he stepped out into the road - and immediately jumped back when a really loud car horn blared like mad. Harry didn't bother replying to the driver's angry shout, knowing he was right - he was in his own world, not a good thing. By the time he'd gotten to the beach, made himself nice and comfortable, he let his mind drift back over his questions.

He remembered what Petunia had told him about his parents deaths, how another wizard had murdered them and tried to kill him from the sounds of it, but why would a headmaster of a school be involved? Sure, his aunt had said his mother had practically idolised him as the second coming of Merlin, but if he was a schoolteacher of all things why would he get involved?

So many times he'd gone over it in his mind, and he hadn't found a single explanation except one.

The old wizard was setting him up.

It was the only thing that made sense - he didn't know if the headmaster had simply had him locked away at the Dursleys with nothing but a letter that his former relatively had easily destroyed, and had more on his plate rather than care about him but why did he get the feeling the man had wanted him to be abused. But why, what did he have to gain?

Harry shook his head, and decided to ignore it for now.

As the days went by where nothing of note really changed for him, finding places to doss and having trouble scraping for food and water, but while he preferred Brightons relatively smaller size, less complex geography, Harry missed the size and scale, not to mention the sheer diversity of London.

* * *

Sorry its short, but hopefully you'll enjoy the rest of the pace.


	5. Chapter 5 Caught

Please leave feedback.

Caught.

Looking at his fingertips, but thankful he'd had the good sense to change them from his real prints, but he'd still fought back for show and to give the idea to these pigs he might actually have form, Harry seethed in his seat as he awaited the decision of the social workers, but truthfully he knew what the decision they'd make. It was obvious what they would do to him. They would ensure he would go into foster care, something he had dreaded for a long, especially if they found out who he was. The only relief he had was that he could change his appearance right down to his fingerprints. It was worse because he didn't know for sure what the police suspected happened at Privet Drive. He had no idea if the police believed he'd simply run away from the house after the Dursleys were murdered - by him - and not the form he'd chosen to do the deed with the hammer, not that they'd imagine he had anything to do with it. The neighbour he'd passed in the street would have identified a large man, not a tiny boy. Well, whatever they thought, he would make sure to keep his true identity secret from them.

Making such a stupid mistake in dropping his guard the way he had was one of the worst mistakes he could have made, but accidents did happen for thieves. Harry had been walking down London Road and he'd spotted a greengrocers shop, and the sight and the smell of all the fresh fruits and vegetables had been a heady mix to the boy who was hungry. So he had decided to steal a few pieces of fruit which would go a long way to pushing his hunger down. He had managed to sneak close to the stands, and picked out a few satsumas, stashing them into his pocket before moving onto the apples, but he was caught after trying to take a cox apple. The shop owner emptied his pockets, and found the other pieces of fruit. Harry hated adults - they treated him like a prisoner, putting him in a corner of their shop and told him to wait until the police arrived. It had taken all of his efforts not to whip out his hammer or his flick knife, and fight his way out, but if he did that the police would hunt him down for assault with a dangerous weapon.

Not that it did much good - the police had confiscated his weapons.

Harry had refused to speak to the police officers, or the social workers. He hadn't answered any of their questions, feeling all the loathing he had accumulated for the police over the years. How many times had he witnessed police officers take backhanders from gangsters during his time in London? How many times had the police, like the teachers at Stonewall Primary turned a blind eye when it was plain he was being beaten black and blue by the Dursleys? The teachers should have seen the damage, especially after Dudley smashed that broken bottle into his face. But it wasn't until Petunia had told him about his magical heritage and how a headmaster of a school with too much time on his hands had dumped him on a doorstep in the middle of the night he'd begun to suspect magical interference.

Despite the interference and knowing it wasn't the fault of the teachers or the police officers, Harry had nevertheless developed a contemptuous attitude for the police and people in authority, particularly since he remembered seeing how many times police officers who were supposed to uphold the law take bribes and look the other way. He also sneered at the way the social workers coddled him as though he were a frightened kid, lost and alone. He was alone, but it was out of choice. He just wanted to be left alone. He didn't want friends or family, he would never have one since the only chances he had ever had for them had proven to be disappointments; the Dursleys could have ignored or at least tried to look past their prejudices towards magic, and Petunia could have grown a fucking spine and used a brain cell to work out her plans would never have worked because sooner or later he would have learnt about magic, whereas at school Dudley could have acted neutral towards him there and only bullied him at Privet drive, and those stupid kids at school had been just as bad, and anyone who made friends with him ended up abandoning him or joining in the humiliations. In the end, after being messed with so many times, Harry had gotten the message. He was strong on his own, he knew he could only trust himself and no one else. It was a sad fact of life but it was the only reality he had. Who had ever lifted a finger to stop Dudley from attacking him at school? Which of the neighbours had looked beyond those petty lies of the Dursleys? That question was contradicted because of the realisation this Dumbledore guy had meddled in his life, but it was still painful to realise how weak minded ordinary people were.

But Harry had never encountered social workers before, and truthfully he had never given them much thought over the years. Now he was getting a taste of them for the first time ever in his life, he wished he had stayed in London, though how long he would have lasted on the streets before getting caught there, he didn't know. In fact he had no idea if it was the smaller size of Brighton compared to his home city that led to him being caught and dropped into this situation in the first place.

But if he heard one of their simpering questions one more time…..

"Don't you wish you were at school, where you could have friends?"

"Don't you want to live in a nice home?"

"Won't it be nice for you to give up your life on streets, and have a real home, go to a real school?"

While Harry was angry at their presumptuous natures, he had to admit to himself the idea of going to school again, living in a stable home was compelling, so he stayed quiet. There was no way they weren't going to let him leave anyway. What upset him the most was they had his hammer and his knife, but since Harry regularly cleaned the two weapons with bleach and other substances they shouldn't find anything incriminating on them. One of the first things he'd done after killing the Dursleys was soak the hammer in a tub full of bleach before scrubbing it so hard he'd had to endure the foul smelling substance just to get rid of the forensic evidence written all over it.

Finally a young lady approached him. She had long dark hair that was either a dark red or a deep brown in colour. While she had a beautiful smile on her face, Harry didn't trust her and some of his feelings must have been visible because her smile faltered a little, but it didn't leave her face. He studied her for a second, taking in her fresh, professional appearance and noticed the naivety in her eyes. He guessed this woman must be new to her job. He didn't care.

She was still a social worker.

"Hello, my name is Martine. What's yours?" The way she asked that question grated on his nerves. She made it sound like he was a little kid who was clueless.

"Harry."

Surprised by the quick reply since the boy hadn't spoken more than a few syllables already, Martine quickly recovered. "Okay, Harry, do you know how you found yourself on the streets?"

"I willingly ran away," the boy replied; it was the truth, but as long as he refused to give the woman too many clues about where he'd come from she shouldn't be able to join up the dots.

Surprised by his quick intelligence and the way he was speaking, Martine looked surprised, "You willingly ran away, why?"

"My family were abusive. I had to escape, they had no intention or letting me have a life, and when I was old enough I was going to be dumped on the street anyway, forced to live a miserable existence because I was held back from having an education or a life of my own. Sure, I live on the streets now, but I knew it would be a matter of time before I would change all that for the better," Harry said, choosing each of his words with extreme care in case he sounded delusional. Martine listened to him, and there was something in her eyes he wasn't sure he liked. "Is there something wrong?" he asked, hiding the fact he genuinely didn't care about her feelings at all.

Martine blinked, surprised by the question and not even trying to hide it. It amazed her that this boy seemed so mentally sure of himself. "What did your family do?" she asked faintly.

Harry sneered maliciously. "What did they do? They beat me, whipped me, forced me to cook, clean and maintain the garden. They forced me to lift things too heavy for my body size. If I burnt anything during mealtimes, I was beaten so badly and shoved into my cupboard with my injuries. They didn't take me to a doctor, a dentist, or even a hospital to tend to the wounds. It's amazing I'm still alive, considering how I read in a book once about infections. School was better - I was bullied, no one wanted to be my friend, and if I did make a friend the other kids would beat them up because they'd made the fatal mistake of befriending me. Sometimes they'd even join the other bullies, so I couldn't win." Harry was beginning to get himself worked up, angry, remembering all the pain he'd felt over the years. He managed to keep control over himself though the temptation to tell this unwanted meddler that soon he would join the magical world and leave as a thief.

Martine was surprised by the passion, the sheer anger coming off the boy even though she was sure he hadn't meant to let go of some of the anger he must have held back for years. She wondered how long he'd been on the streets, but decided that was irrelevant for now. "Harry, why didn't you tell anyone?"

Harry narrowed his eyes. "The teachers at the school - and no, I'm not going to tell you where the school is either in case you want to send me back - either didn't notice, or were bent enough to take bribes. I don't know, frankly I don't care either about the answer. To me, those people are dead. No one in the neighbourhood noticed either, they probably only cared for themselves. So much for those boring and pointless soap operas that the telly puts out every night, showing how neighbours care for each other," he finished mockingly.

Martine was beginning to wonder if she was even qualified or cut out to be a social worker by now because listening to Harry speaking was like being condemned in a courtroom. She had dealt with several children by now, but none of them had ever shown this level of anger or intelligence. She knew how smart kids were, but she could tell there was something sly and shifty about Harry, even as he showed his clear disgust for the neighbours on his street and for the teachers and kids at his school. "Where did you run away from?"

Harry had no intention of telling her that information. "Peterborough," he lied, "I've been drifting here and there."

Lying was still a risk, but as long as "Surrey" and "Little Whinging" was left out of the equation then he should be safe enough. He had noticed that Martine was noting down everything he was telling her, not that he was surprised. It was part of her job after all.

"And you came down through London to Brighton, all on your own?" Martine sounded sceptical, Harry wasn't surprised by her disbelief since it was a tall order for a kid to live on the streets and cross the distance between Peterborough and London and Brighton, but it wasn't unusual for runaways to cross large distances.

Harry didn't bother replying, he also didn't care if she believed he was telling porkies. What could she do? With his appearance slightly different from his normal appearance (he made it a point to hide the facial scar at all times, the last thing he wanted was people looking for a kid with an ugly scar - he would never be able to hide, if it weren't for his morphic powers), his jet black hair was less messy and was instead brown. But his eye colour was still green.

The two continued speaking for a few more minutes. Martine was caught between frustration and wondering if she would ever meet someone as closed off as Harry. He simply refused to give her any true details about his life, so Martine couldn't build a picture of where he'd lived, how he'd survived, or even how long he had been on the streets in the first place. What she was sure of was he was lying about coming from Peterborough. She wasn't sure why, but she was certain that it was a lie.

The only problem was she couldn't prove anything. All she could do was note it down and her certainty it was a lie, but there was nothing Martine or her colleagues could do about it.

* * *

"What do you think?" Martine later asked two of her co-workers. Sasha Seder and Alex Marshall were standing in the observation room where they had witnessed the interview between Harry and Martine, also standing with them was DC Vance.

Sasha was the one to speak first. She was still smarting from Harry's comment to her to "fuck herself" when she constantly asked him questions about wanting to live with a family instead of by himself. "I don't believe him," she said with certainty, "I don't think he lived in Peterborough."

Martine sighed. The problem with Sasha was she got annoyed easily. "I know that," she replied. "I think its a mistake to constantly poke and prod him into telling us the truth."

"I'm more worried by what we found in his rucksack," Alex commented. "Has the knife and hammer been rushed to forensics in case he's used them?"

"Yeah, but I think he's used 'em for weapons," DC Vance replied, inwardly thinking these social workers were so naive. As a copper, he and his colleagues saw homeless people scrounge around the city every day of the week. Sometimes they were just harmless beggars, but not all of them were so passive. Many of them could be violent, and some of them were laid off from their jobs and they had lost everything, so they had also lost their respect for the law since it had turned its back on them all. Vance hated to see children mixed up in a world like that but unlike the social workers he didn't view the world with rose tinted glasses; children could be criminals themselves, some of them started when they were in their nappies taking things off shop shelves.

While Vance found it horrible and worrying that a child would carry around a hammer of all things, he had to admit it was better than a machete or a Japanese katana, even the knockoffs were still dangerous despite their cheap construction.

"Has anything been pulled off the hammer, it looks like he's had it for years?" Sasha asked.

Vance disliked this woman more than the others. She was so pushy and irritating most of the time he was forced to work with her, but for the moment she was just asking him questions. As long as she stuck to them now he wouldn't react. "No. Weirdly enough there weren't any fingerprints on it, not even the handle. We've taken the kid's fingerprints to find out who he is, and he reacted quite nastily as well."

"What happened?" Martine whispered.

Vance nodded at the picture of Harry sitting calmly at the table, his eyes showing no emotion whatsoever. "Don't let that calm facade fool you. He fought like a wildcat trying to escape," he said. "He didn't punch or kick any of the officers, but he didn't make it easy for them of course."

While he sat in the interview room - it surprised him the social workers and the police were going so far to put him in this room since although he was a thief he was also a kid, but he quickly guessed that he was being observed if the visible camera in the room was any clue. The police were so unimaginative, if you were going to question a suspect or spy on them wouldn't it be better and more practical to hide a camera?

Mentally he was preparing himself for heading back into a home, not that he'd call Privet Drive a home, and having to deal with kids older and younger than he was. The prospect was horrifying for him, but he had developed and honed his skills as a street fighter.

* * *

Leaning back in his chair it was a struggle for him not to fall asleep. The room was a simple cube with walls and ceiling with a single leaf door. There was nothing in it apart from a table and four chairs, the room was so boring Harry was amazed he hadn't dropped off sooner by now.

But he remained still and quiet even though the urge to get up, walk around the room, stretch his legs and circulate more blood through his body was overwhelming, and just thought to himself. There were no way he was going to get fostered, there was no telling if the so called nice people the social workers set him up with turned out to be like the Dursleys except ignorant of magic, but it wasn't worth the risk. He didn't want to resort to the same method he had used with the Dursleys. The police would sooner or later notice the similarities between the two cases if he did. Besides it wasn't worth it.

But he didn't want to receive his Hogwarts letter in a foster home. He didn't want any non-magical person getting wind of who and what he was in reality. While he was sure not everyone non-magical was dangerous, people were dumb, panicky and dangerous animals when it came to things they didn't understand. The Dursleys were a prime example of that - they had believed stupidly that the Hogwarts letter wouldn't come, that they could beat the magic out of him as though they were tearing the innards out of a chicken they were preparing for their Sunday roast, and they'd thought that he would be powerless enough for Petunia to get her final revenge on her sister.

Maybe it was possible for magic to be beaten out, though he didn't think so, Harry had left the Dursleys with less faith in adults or people in authority - he had made the mistake of trying to get them on his side before, several times, and he had paid for it each time with a beating. He had no intention of making that mistake again.

The social workers and the police wouldn't find anything out on the hammer or the knife. He had polished the former of the evidence it had collected from the Dursleys, he didn't give a toss about the previous times he'd had to use it since he could lie and say he had acquired the hammer from other owners, or he'd just found it, and they wouldn't be able to prove anything since he always changed his fingerprints after each use of the hammer and it was taken from him somehow.

He wondered what the social workers were saying about him before deciding it made no difference to him at all. They had already decided to put him in a foster home and wait for him to be adopted.

* * *

Now Harry is caught how do you see everything going?


	6. Chapter 6 Harry Palmer

Hello there everyone.

Thanks for liking my story, I really appreciate it. For those of you who believe that my last chapter note about whether they can guess what was going to come in the future was me being stupid and asking for help writing my story, I don't. I can take ideas for how to make my story better but I have the storyplan for this one already down, and I resent being called stupid when it comes to my work.

For those of you who had their ideas, well done.

"Harry Palmer."

Martine sighed as she got out of the car with Sasha and another colleague, Nathan Walker, and walked towards the reception of the school. Martine rolled her eyes as Sasha spoke to the receptionist. She had no idea how this was going to go since this appointment was routine, but it concerned a child that was so difficult Martine knew for sure more seasoned social workers would have had problems with him.

"We're here to speak to the headmaster about Harry Palmer," she began.

The receptionist nodded. "Yes, he's expecting you. If you'll just take a seat I'll let him know you're here."

Martine and the others did as they were told, and as she sat down she thought about the boy she and her colleagues had come to school to talk about. The 'Harry Palmer' case as it had been named had become notorious for the social workers. A month after the mysterious boy, who'd given his name to the social workers and to the police officers who'd gone to the green grocery shop in London Road to pick him up as Harry Palmer, the social workers were still trying to find the boy a decent home. Unfortunately, the boy refused - he told the social workers straight away he would rather slit his throat than go with another family. Ordinarily that kind of threat would be ignored but Martine's brief contact with Harry in the police station had proven to her the boy was simply not the type to exaggerate. He meant what he said, it was a strange thing for a boy who was seemingly so concerned about surviving at all costs. Martine didn't go for things like martial arts and stuff, but she was a keen observer, and during the course of the month after the boy had been taken off the streets, she had watched over him.

He was very in tune with his surroundings. He was alert, whenever he noticed someone or a car nearby, he would either freeze to see what the car of that somebody was going to do, and he would always tense as if preparing for a fight. But other times he would simply wait in a corner until the supposed danger was passed. That kind of paranoia told Martine that the boy was always on the alert for an attack, and since the boys weapons had been confiscated his danger sense had grown.

But while the boy didn't like the idea of entering another family, he didn't seem to mind being in a foster home, but from what Martine understood he was only pleased he wasn't living on the streets anymore - the boy's ability to adapt was incredible. He just refused to have anything to do with the kids his own age. He refused to speak to them, socialise with them, anything. In fact he would sit and watch in case they tried anything.

That had worried many of the social workers, but once they'd gotten the basics of the story out of the boy about how virtually everyone in the neighborhood victimised him, including the kids in school they began to understand him a little more and realised he was simply trying to protect himself. Martine for herself felt sorry for him - true, the boy had a vicious temper, but she felt sorry for him because of his loneliness. He refused to talk about himself, so they had no idea how long he had actually been living on the streets. He could have lived on them since he was three for all the attitude he gave them, but Martine doubted it. She could tell because of the way he'd spoken, he had clearly had some education because he was able to read and write, though some of the more cynical members of their team had pointed out the boy could simply have picked it up over the years on the streets.

Not every beggar was illiterate, after all. Martine was snapped out of her thoughts when a tall stocky man appeared. "Are you the social workers?" he asked.

Martine had just stood up when the headmaster arrived but it was Sasha who shook his hand, making her colleagues either scoff or roll their eyes at Sasha's need to be in command all the time. "Yes, we are," she said breathlessly, "I'm Sasha."

A bit perturbed by the woman's eagerness, the headmaster looked pleadingly towards Martine and Nathan. Nathan held up his hand. "I'm Nathan."

"And I'm Martine. Can you take us to your office, please?"

"Yes, of course. I'll make sure you have tea and coffee."

Once they were inside the headmasters office and tea and coffee and some stale biscuits scattered on a plate nearby, the headmaster began the meeting. "What was it you wanted to speak to me about?" he asked.

Martine had to hold back a smile at the man. He knew why they were there, what they wanted to speak to him about, but he was giving them the perfect opening so then he could speak and get his thoughts out there.

"How is Harry Palmer settling in?" she asked him.

The headmaster leaned back in his seat, deep in thought for a moment, then he leaned forwards again and looked at them all seriously. "Harry Palmer is settling in well enough, on the education side. But emotionally… it would be easy to let a tiger into the school to make friends."

"It's that bad?" Martine had known from the moment she'd met Harry he wouldn't be an easy cookie. In fact after learning how he was doing in the home, not speaking to anybody and all that she had hoped he was doing slightly better at school. Looks like she was wrong or hoping for a miracle that simply was not meant to come.

"Harry Palmer refuses any and all kinds of friendship with the other kids in school. He avoids the other kids, sits on his own, and he rarely participates in the school activities. Whenever he works, he always works on his own. I've heard it from the PE teachers that he looks at the other kids as though waiting for them to attack him, and indeed he has lashed out at the kids who laughed at him for being an orphan and in foster care."

"No," Martine closed her eyes while Nathan licked his lips. Both of them were thinking the same thing. They had learnt enough about Harry's life to know how he felt about being attacked, and they knew it would be a big setback for him.

"Has he injured any of them?" Sasha asked. Martine frowned, Sasha was beginning to look at Harry like he was her personal nemesis.

The headmaster nodded. "It depends more on how you term injured. Let me give you an example, a week ago Harry was accosted by a few other pupils, about five of them at least, but four of them were reluctant to be there. There were a dozen witnesses and they claimed Harry was not doing anything worth noticing. He was just sitting in a corner, munching on a chocolate bar and reading a book. When the students went over to him, he ignored them and would have done if they hadn't taunted him."

"What were they taunting him about?" Martine asked, hoping Sasha took on board what was being said; out of all of them she was the most vocal Harry Palmer be given to a proper family who could teach him the values of family, but Martine had her doubts it would even happen. But Sasha was still smarting about Harry telling her to fuck off that the woman was becoming too inflexible. Personally Martine wished Sasha would fuck off.

"Being an orphan, how no one wants him, how he has to live in a foster home. Take your pick," the headmaster's voice and expression was grim, "at least one of the boys was more extreme. Harry just looked at him without any expression on his face and would have kept on reading if the boy, who'd rallied the others into picking on him, but they clearly didn't want to but the boy had bullied them into it, saying they would be having fun."

The headmaster took a deep breath. "The boy insulted Harry's parents, and Harry replied that since neither he or the boy had known his parents in the land of the living that must mean the boy could speak to the dead. At that point of the ringleader's buddies threw a punch at Harry, the blow almost caught him in the face, but it missed. The boys were taken away after that, but not before Harry landed a few vicious punches to their faces, and slammed one of them into a wall before kicking them."

Nathan closed his eyes wondering if this kid would ever be re-homed. By the sounds of it there would need to be a miracle since many foster couples looking to help children wanted a kid that was nice, non-violent, didn't have any criminal tendencies and certainly didn't beat kids up on a whim. But it wasn't a whim, was it? Harry had not been doing anything, in fact from the sounds of the headmaster's story Harry was more than willing to wait until he'd been attacked and then fight back.

He was intrigued enough to ask, "Excuse me, but how viciously did Harry fight?"

"Why do you want to ask him that?" Sasha immediately interfered.

"I just want to know."

"Why? It's clear to me that Harry Palmer is violent-"

"Please, explain to us how violent Harry was when he was provoked," Nathan interrupted Sasha before sending her a glare. He was getting seriously tired of having to hear her voice, and he actually envied Harry for having the courage to tell Sasha what she could do with herself. In fact, if Sasha didn't control herself, then he'd speak to their superiors and have her assigned to a different case.

The headmaster seemed to be enjoying the fight between the two social workers, so he hadn't seen much point in getting between their argument. "When he's in classes and whenever a teacher asks him a question, he's very precise, clear in his responses, so he's clearly been in school before. But when he's attacked, he becomes a raging monster, but there's an intelligence behind it somehow. For instance when those boys went for him, he made sure none of them got too close, and he waited for them to make a mistake he could use. One of the boys threw a punch that left his right vulnerable so Harry threw a punch under his arm into his ribs. But I don't think he's violent in the sense he's violent all the time, and I think you're being too judgemental towards him," he said severely at an affronted Sasha, "granted, he reacted violently, but he was pushed."

While Sasha spluttered Martine smoothly asked, "How are you so sure he isn't making friends? Its not unusual for kids to make friends without anyone's knowledge. He could have one and yet you might not even know it."

The headmaster conceded the point, "True enough. I can only see so much, but despite trying to encourage Harry to make a friend here and there he refuses to do it. He might have a friend in the school, we just don't know."

Nathan had been spending most of the meeting writing notes down about Harry's progress, and now decided to turn to his education. "What's he like as a student?"

The headmaster had been hoping for a change of subject and was happy to give it. "I've only heard this from second hand accounts, but from what I've heard he's a very good student. He keeps to himself, mostly, but his work is up to standard. True, we're not a secondary school so we have no real idea what his understanding is like, and he likes to read some of the novels we've got in the classrooms. He's also a good artist - maybe not up to a master's level, but still good. Here," he said, leafing through the papers on his desk, "take a look."

The headmaster passed over three sketches. Beautifully illustrated in pencil was the vision of an ancient city beneath the sea, with seaweeds and fishes, but the most prominent were two men dressed in diver's suits that looked almost ancient. Martine looked at another picture showing an old fashioned sailing ship with a man standing on some kind of platform holding a flag with the letter N on it. The next picture was of a tall man with one leg dressed in the kind of clothes you'd expect someone to wear, holding a crutch. Having read Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, Martine didn't have a problem guessing she was looking at a sketch of Long John Silver, but she didn't recognise the book the other pictures came from.

Instead of trying to deduce what book the first two sketches were based on, Martine passed the other two sketches to Sasha and Nathan and continued to study the way Harry had drawn the pictures. The detail was amazing to her, and if the quick glance she'd sent towards Sasha and Nathan showed that they too were impressed by the way Harry had drawn these pictures. Martine had the idea Harry could be given a proper chance at life if he was given an opportunity to embrace art.

"Does Harry have an interest in art?" Martine asked.

The headmaster shrugged his shoulders. "We don't know if he has any interest in any classes," he said, "the strange thing about him is that he can score perfect grades in one class and score abysmal grades in another, for instance say he scores a good grade in english and then gets a poor grade in maths and science, and then he gets a terrible grade in another english test and a reasonably average grade in maths, and an excellent grade in science. In the case of art he does have some interest because he's allowing his imagination to work. He's a good artist but I'm not sure if art can be used as a means to get him to turn his life around, I think his interest in art is merely an idle past time, not a way for him to make a living or something along those lines," the headmaster paused, not aware he'd unintentionally thrown Martine's hopes down the drain, "but I have no idea what Harry's plans or ideas are."

"When he first arrived, how did he seem to you? Was he rebellious?"

The headmaster chuckled. "It was like trying to tame a wild animal at first, but he quickly settled down when he realised there was no choice. It only took him a few hours. After that he was as good as gold, and he'd been like that ever since. He doesn't contribute much in the classes, though. He prefers to stay quiet and let others speak, and he clearly doesn't like working in teams."

By the look on Sasha's face it was clear to the other social workers she didn't believe Harry was good as gold, and they wondered whether or not she was impartial enough to think about Harry Palmer if she was still offended by him even now.

"Apart from that, has he been rebellious since?" Martine asked.

"Has he caused problems for the teachers?"

"No more than the other kids, but compared to when he was brought into the school for the first time he has not caused any problems for any of my teachers. How is he doing at the foster home?"

Surprised by the question, Martine said, "Why do you want to know?"

"Because I'm getting tired of the same theme going around and round. Harry might not have any friends, but that doesn't matter to some kids. I've read what you sent me about him, how he was abused and how no-one in his neighbourhood lifted a finger to stop it, but also how the local school acted. After finding all that out you should be asking how he is still functional rather than worry about how violent he is, since most kids who are treated like that and forced to runaway to live on the streets turn out violent in some manner. I've told you so far how he was only violent when he was provoked, I have told you already that he is as good as gold in lessons even if he doesn't really seem to care about his grades. So please, have you at least done some research into how he is doing at the foster home?" The headmaster asked, breathing slightly from the rant. He was hoping to change the subject, move it along and not be caught up continuously in the same loop over and over again.

It worked. While the social workers were understandably surprised by the headmaster's outpouring of annoyance, they had to agree to move on since they weren't getting anywhere.

"Not much better," Martine was grim. "He prefers to sit away from the other kids, reading on his own, but according to the carers at the home he never takes his eyes off the other kids like he's preparing for a fight."

The headmaster sighed. "What did that kid go through?" It was a rhetorical question but Martine answered it.

"We don't know."

"Have you circulated his description?"

"We have, but we haven't got anything," Nathan said.

Martine shook her head. "We've been trying to get some idea of the boy's past, we're even asking further up north - it might be ridiculous, but we've got nothing to lose."

"Good point," the headmaster conceded, "how is it going finding a home for him?"

"Not good. Most of the people who are willing to foster kids want them to be nice, orderly, rule abiding," Nathan folded his arms, "and Harry Palmer is none of those things."

* * *

It was lunch break by the time the social workers had gone, but they didn't know that the subject for their meeting with the headmaster was watching them leave. Harry wasn't surprised they were here, he'd seen them at the foster home several times in the past week, so it was only natural they'd want to know how he was doing at school. Truthfully Harry didn't think his time at the school had gone too badly, the fights he'd had didn't count since the last one had done a great deal to convince the other kids he was a bit crazy, and since he just wanted to be left alone he wasn't concerned.

What was on his mind was finding ways to escape from both the school and the foster home.

Harry didn't mind living in the foster home because he had decided to get off the streets after being caught, so Martine was right although he had no way of knowing that. Warmth, a continuous supply of food, a comfortable bed, a private room all to himself, school where he had the chance of continuing his education though his appearance and his name weren't known to anyone. Apart from a few minor changes in his hair colour and a bit of his face, Harry's morphic powers hadn't really changed him that much at all, and any changes that were noticed were simply chalked up to growing up.

It was the longest period his morphic powers had stopped him altering his appearance full time - the masking of his facial scar from Dudley's assault during school didn't really count, Harry had been covering that up for years since it drew attention to his features, and a facial scar in the shape of a broken glass bottle was too distinctive. Harry had learnt to hide his emotions after discovering, to his horror, that his morphic powers were affected by his emotional state, and his true features bled through the mask.

It had been a few days after killing the Dursleys that he'd discovered this little issue. He had been trying to find a place to doss and he'd been chased off by everyone from prostitutes and other squatters. After being chased away from another spot for the third time, Harry had lost his temper. He was cold at the time, hungry, tired, all he'd wanted was to find a place to sleep, so it was no wonder his temper had snapped. One minute the guy he was fighting with was looking at him maliciously, eyes sparking, and then he looking at him scared.

"Freak!"

The attacker had whispered that hated word, and then he'd run away screaming. Despite his anger, Harry had been curious about why someone who'd gotten the drop on him suddenly got scared and just ran away, so he'd felt his face since he didn't have anything that showed his reflection. There wasn't even a van nearby so he could peer at himself in the glass. Harry had touched his face and found the increasingly familiar scars Dudley had left on his face, and he'd been horrified since he had thought he'd covered them up.

It was the memory of that night and the fear of what could happen to him in school that was the primary reason Harry did his best to avoid conflict - that fight with those boys didn't count, but if just one of them had seen his face change….. When those boys had attacked him, he had worked hard to control his emotions while he fought back, but it was still a near thing.

Harry shrugged, deciding it made no difference. He'd have to be careful, but why was it trouble always followed him around when all he wanted was to be left alone? Still the good news was he had time to kill. He had thought of a handful of ideas on how to escape if he needed to, but the hard part was making sure he didn't become too comfortable. It was hard since he hadn't really had a decent bed for years so it was hard for him to get used to the idea, but he didn't want to be at the home when his Hogwarts letter arrived; the Dursleys and his time at that dump people called Stonewall Primary had convinced him of the dangers of other people being afraid of things they didn't understand.

Harry shuddered at the types of things they'd do if it was discovered he was a wizard, that magic existed, that he had a place at a school which taught magic. He had ideas already, so he had made a good start.

* * *

A couple of days later Harry wondered just what the headmaster had said to the social workers because Martine arrived with a male colleague at the home on a Saturday. Harry was busy with his homework when the two social workers arrived at the home, but he was busy working in the garden so he could have some peace and quiet. The other kids at the home still weren't sure what to make of him and like most kids had tried to make friends with him and they were still trying even after he had made it clear he wanted nothing to do with them. Some of them had gotten the hint, others hadn't yet.

The garden had pretty much become his sanctuary, but it wasn't just a place he could get away from the idiots at the home. He was also looking for a way to escape the home using the garden and also trying to see what resources he had available.

Some of the kids at the home had already started thinking of Harry as a bit of a weirdo because unlike them he didn't have problems doing his chores - Harry had learnt the hard, painful way it was a waste of time arguing and besides doing the cleaning gave him an excuse to truly look around the foster home to see what his resources were, and it gave him a chance to learn the layout of the home and find places where he could stash anything he'd stolen since he no longer had access to the streets.

Harry was just in the middle of regretting not having the old freedoms being on the street gave him when he saw Martine and her colleague arrive. Martine was dressed in a salmon pink shirt and a white skirt with white shoes with her hair tied back in a ponytail. The man was dressed smart but casually in a navy blue jacket, blue shirt and black trousers and simple white sneakers.

"Hello Harry, nice day isn't it?" Martine said cheerfully.

Why was it every time he saw this woman she instantly tried to put on that manner that made her sound a little bit fake? Harry was sure Martine was a nice woman, but he wished she would just be genuine. Some might call him cynical but he didn't care, he had grown up in an environment where everyone had an ulterior motive. He wasn't used to people being nice to him and truthfully he didn't want people to be fake, but he had no intention of telling them that. He didn't want them to change, and besides if they couldn't figure out what he wanted they weren't worth their salt as social workers.

"Martine," he greeted, putting down his pen so he could give them his complete attention, he could always return to it if these two bored him. "What do you want?"

Martine and her colleague approached, it wasn't lost on either of them that Harry didn't once take his eyes off either of them, his body language and the way he projected himself told both Nathan and Martine the boy was more than prepared to fight back if things became physical and that worried them both equally. "We just want to know how you are," Nathan answered before he decided to introduce himself. "Hi, I'm Nathan. I've heard a lot about you."

Harry lifted an eyebrow. "I doubt that. Nice to meet you," he said with nothing in tone giving away if he was being sincere or not.

Nathan noticed the calm of the boy and sat down nearby but not close enough to be considered a threat. "What are you working on?" he asked curiously.

"My english homework," Harry replied before deciding the game was a bit too old. He was more than willing to play games within reason with these two, but he wasn't in the mood. "Why are you here?"

Nathan wasn't sure what to make of the boy's sharp and to the point attitude. "I have been put on your case, Harry, and I hope we can work together to find you a place to live, and a family for you to live with."

Harry chuckled. "I guess no one has told you that I would rather slit my throat than go with another family. Please, I have told you people a dozen times now that I want nothing to do with other families. It's all a game; families pretend to love you, but they don't."

Both Martine and Nathan didn't like the certainty coming from Harry, but what scared them the most was that even now, with all the good treatment he'd been receiving he still expected to wake up one day and receive a beating. Nathan had read the hospital reports after the boy had been taken there to be checked out, and the scar tissue, the amount of damage to the skeleton from being beaten so many times….it staggered the mind that the boy was still capable of the simplest movements. From a certain perspective it was probably not too surprising Harry expected the worst in people, although it was still depressing that the boy would think he was still in danger.

"You're wasting your time, all of you, I'm not interested in being adopted," Harry said.

Nathan shrugged. "Okay, well we'll reach that point again soon," he promised, deciding that it was waste of energy to speak about the matter of adoption even if it was essential. "We heard from your headmaster about the fight."

He paused as if waiting for the boy to say something, but Harry just stared back with pure disinterest on his face. "I didn't start that fight," he said, "I was more than happy to stay away from that lot, it was only when they began throwing punches at me things got out of hand."

Martine lifted a brow. Out of hand? From the sounds of it, it was lucky none of the boys had ended up hospitalised, but she could understand Harry's point.

"What else did he tell you?"

"That you love art."

Harry gave a low laugh. "I love the creativity," he answered, "I can draw whatever I like whenever I like, no one can take that from me. And if you two are thinking of using it as a way to get me to become a good boy you're wasting your time."

Martine was beginning to think this was going to go nowhere. The boy was stubborn. With most runaways who had been abused they learnt to trust again fairly quickly without thinking they were going to have a repeat happening. It was natural for them to think it would happen again, but they eventually learnt to trust, but Harry didn't want to trust again and Martine had no idea what the outcome was going to be.

"I wasn't going to say that, actually," Nathan went on, "I just wanted to compliment you about your work."

"Thank you."

Finally Nathan decided to be more direct. "Look, I understand why you're frightened about living with another family but its for the best for you-"

"No, it's not," Harry interrupted calmly. "Believe me, when I was younger I had wanted nothing more than to have a family of my own, a family that loved me unconditionally. It never happened. End of story. It's not going to happen now. I'm not going to bother pursuing a dream because you say its going to be better for me."

After the social workers left ten minutes later - there wasn't much for them to talk about after the way he had told them he had long since given up on family - Harry was left on his own, and he had gone back to working in his book, but the meeting had left him deep in thought.

Over and over again, Harry's mind treacherously went back to what Nathan and Martine had said about foster families and how in the past he had wanted parents who loved him instead of the same hateful, pathetic wastes of flesh he'd been forced to live with. While it would be nice for him to have a normal life and perhaps even have siblings - they wouldn't be related, but at least he'd have the chance to have either a brother or a sister, Harry simply couldn't take the risk. Even if he hoped that things would be better than it was at Number 4, there was no guarantee it would be amicable at all. The foster carers might even be abusive. The last thing Harry wanted was to replace the Dursleys with another set of abusers. He knew the social workers knew about the basics of what had happened and what he wanted, but he doubted it would make much difference at all. While Martine and Nathan showed a facade that they cared about him and the other kids they worked with, Harry didn't know if they were being genuine or not so if they succeeded in giving him to a foster family then he could just become another statistic to be proud of. Nothing else.

And then there was his magic. It had driven a wedge between Petunia and his mother, it had been years ago and yet the bitter woman his aunt had become had gotten caught up in that sick plan of hers in getting her revenge on her dead sister who had ended up being so wonderful and better than her that she would make sure her orphaned son would grow up without any opportunity to be successful, and be driven out to live on the streets for life, and it never occurred to her that the basic plan she and her moron of a husband had cooked up, the one where they'd verbally and physically abuse him to the point his magic left that he'd be vulnerable would never work. For instance he could still be living at Number 4 - god forbid - and still be abused, but when he was contacted by Hogwarts there was no doubt in his mind that he would go back to them and make them pay for the things they had done to him over the years. It was his magic that was one of the main reasons why Harry was determined not to go with another family because he knew it would only be a matter of time before they discovered what he could do; how he could change his appearance, some of his experiments in magic, etc.

Would they accept him? Would they scorn him? Harry just did not know but he had no intention of finding out.

After finishing his work, Harry picked up his book and pen and walked around the garden hoping to have a chance to himself. He got on the swing and gently played on it, using his legs to kick himself up. He swung higher and higher, feeling a bit like Icarus did before the arrogant fool went so high that the sun melted his wings set with wax and bird feathers and then fell into the sea, but while Icarus and his father had made the wings in order to escape from prison, Harry was trying to get an idea of parts of the garden from above he could use in order to escape. He had no idea how long he'd have before the social workers came back but he knew that sooner or later his partial control over his powers leaked out or when his appearance would change too drastically to excuse would be notice, so he would need to find a way out. Quick.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Please tell me what you think.


	7. Chapter 7 It's time to go

Hello everyone! I'm back with a new chapter, and a word of advice for the Guest reviewer who sent a review to me telling me how many days it had been since my last update, it takes as long as it takes. I can't rush these chapters.

"It's time to go."

Harry 'Palmer' was at the Brighton foster home for no more than 8 months, a much shorter amount of time than he'd previously expected or wanted. While he could have left at any time he chose, Harry had decided to simply stay and become comfortable; the years he had spent locked in that disgusting cupboard under the stairs and the time he'd spent on the streets of London forced to live on a meagre living with no actual support system had toughened him up a bit, but since Harry knew he would need to leave soon he didn't let himself become too comfortable or complacent. It had taken time for him to earn the basic trust extended to every kid in the foster home because everyone knew of his tendencies towards violence and theft, but Harry had always returned to the home without any issue and he never (as far as they knew) broke their oh so important curfew, so they'd loosened up around him which meant he could visit the beach and basically enjoy himself.

He had to endure the stupidity of the social workers, but that was expected, but since he generally ignored them, they gave up and eventually left him alone while he concentrated on a plan to escape. He had been in the foster home for eight months now and he had come up with no less than a hundred plans, but he had one that was logical enough for him to follow. Figuring out a way to escape the home was one thing, and he had learnt that he could escape during the night as silently as he could and he could climb down using the skills he'd picked up from the burglary gang, he'd run around with before the police stopped them and then climb back up again, it was quite another to decide where he could go afterwards. The window that was inside his bedroom was blessed by a wide enough window that he could open and squeeze himself through and there happened to be a drainpipe made from metal that had branches like a tree built in to facilitate the water flow, but it was further blessed by having trees and thick bushes that made it very hard for anybody to see him.

Harry could have escaped that way, but he wasn't stupid - he knew as soon as he got out the police and social workers would know and they'd rip Brighton to pieces trying to find him. He would need cash just to get away from Brighton and go somewhere else to live - his old haunts in London were probably no longer safe for him anymore, they'd probably been overtaken by other runaways who wouldn't take too kindly to having their old owner coming back to live in them again. Maybe he could go further along the coast? Portsmouth or Southhampton were reasonably far from Brighton and with his morphing he could change his appearance at will, and the picture the social workers had of him in his current form could easily not be used again. He would simply choose a different form.

In the meantime, Harry used the 8 months to try to form basic connections in Brighton. He needed to have a fence or two who could deal with anything he'd stolen in order to get some hard cash, and he found one or two of them fairly quickly. It was so good being able to morph again after being in the same shape so frequently. After finding a decent enough fence, Harry began committing burglaries in the dead of night once he was sure everyone had gone to bed. It was so easy for him to climb down the piping outside his room, change his appearance and head out to one of the houses he'd targeted. Some of the houses may have looked unattractive on the outside, but that didn't mean they couldn't hold something valuable inside their walls. After going through their possessions Harry would then leave and return to the foster home, changing his appearance along the way and always being on the lookout for CCTV, but once he returned to the home he was faced with a problem, and it wasn't climbing back up the drainpipe again - no, he had been taught the tricks of that part of the trade - it was how he was going to hide all he had taken in his room. Harry was almost sure that the social workers or the foster home staff, perhaps both, were going through what little he had. He had lost count of the number of times he had returned to the bedroom and found a number of things moved, say a pen a few centimetres away from where it had been before.

But before he had committed his first burglaries, he set up a little trap to be sure if someone other than himself went into his room. Harry had moved his bedroom around a little bit and planting a few things underneath his bed in a sort of maze like pattern, moving the bed much closer to the door than it had been originally and then he had gotten hold of a small jar and placed it on a very uneven stack of books before filling it with marbles and a few golf balls. The idea was when someone opened the door it would knock down the books and the jar and the marbles and golf balls would spread out, and that person would have no choice but to put them all back inside and try to stack the books back the way they'd been stacked, but they would have made mistakes. Harry had tried it out twice as a practice test, and quite a few of the marbles and golf balls had gone underneath the bed until he'd retrieved them and put them back in the jar.

The day Harry put the trap into operation, he left the foster home full of anticipation - he knew that someone was probably going through his room, and he needed to know for sure otherwise they'd probably find what he'd nicked. When he'd returned from school, the first thing he had done was check the trap. The moment he laid eyes on the set up - the stack of books, the jar, he knew he was right. He had memorised and drawn the general shape and angle of the slant of the stack, and what he had seen that afternoon showed him that not only was the stack set up differently, it was a little more neater than it had been before. When Harry had left it was slanted on forwards, but when he got back it wasn't slanted at all. And the jar….he found three marbles and a golf ball underneath the bed.

The moment he found them, he realised the room was a big no when it came to the question should I hide my gear here? But Harry had been tempted not to do so anyway, it was just so disappointing these people didn't care about his privacy and thought nosing through his things would give them a better insight into him, or at least work out what he was doing with his time. Their arrogance staggered him no end, and it deepened the lack of trust he had for them. So he decided to hide whatever he took in his school bag.

It wasn't just burglary Harry was interested in while living at the foster home, he was interested in broadening his knowledge about harnessing his magic, and he found the perfect teacher in the form of Matilda, the film adaptation directed by Danny DeVito. While Harry doubted the Matilda in the film was a witch, he took heart some of the hints and tips in the film, and he began experimenting, using the anger and frustration he had let build up over the years and he concentrated had. Harry was a little cynical he'd succeed at first, but he managed to perform a few basic spells and things became easier for him.

Unfortunately, that was when things went wrong for him, as he soon discovered. His control of his powers was still a little shaky, but they were still governed by his emotions which made them unstable. He guessed it was inevitable this would happen to him. Sitting in his bedroom alone, Harry guessed that downstairs, well throughout the whole home for that matter, the old hated words "freak" and "weirdo" were being passed around like chocolate. Why was it every time he was in a school other kids had to fuck around with him? That old group he had dealt with very quickly in the early days of his time at the school had gathered their courage again. Harry shook his head to himself, thinking that he had become too complacent otherwise he wouldn't have been taken by surprise. He had been trapped in this fucking house too long.

After nursing their injuries the boys had plotted revenge and they had obviously taken their time, but what Harry couldn't work out was how they'd managed to get an idea of his patterns since he was careful to always vary his routine. It didn't matter anymore, he conceded as he remembered walking through the door out of the school, only for one of the boys to grab him and haul him out before he could blink and then they started beating him up. Reeling and stunned Harry found it hard to fight back, but that hadn't stopped him from trying, but he simply couldn't get up to fight them off. Maybe it wasn't a surprise his magic had reacted the way it had, it was just frustrating that he didn't have that vital control yet. To cut a long boring story short, he was on the ground, trying to stop the boys beating him to a pulp, but no matter what he tried to do they kept punching and kicking him. One of the punches was to the head, and another in the stomach and both had worked well to stun him, and with all the blows hammering down on his body Harry needed a few minutes to get his brain back together. After failing to stand up and fight them off and no one bothering to help, not that he'd expected any, and he'd felt his anger bubble away within him. His magic had done the rest, all of the boys had been blasted off their feet and they'd been knocked about 5 feet away from him, but that wasn't the worst of it. No, his morphic powers had played up, and instead of the appearance that he had spent the last 8 months sporting his hair had long, blond and his eyes were black. It had taken him no less than 10 minutes to restore his disguise, but the damage was done, and everyone in the school had either seen the whole mess and hadn't given a thought about it since it was him who was being beaten - why would they lift a finger? To them, he was an oddball since everyone knew he had lived on the streets, didn't socialise though why was anyones guess since socialising meant having to deal with people who had their own agendas, who could betray him in an instant. Harry hadn't bothered telling them about his reticence because it wasn't worth his time, he thought, explaining his reasons for just wanting to be left alone to get on with his life.

Anyway, it didn't make any difference now, did it? Everyone had seen his face and hair change, so it was incredibly hard for Harry to hide. Too many people had seen it, including a few of the teachers, so it was likely the social workers would get wind of it. They would never believe it, Harry knew that, but they would hear of it and they might become intrigued.

Harry had to escape now. He had no choice, and besides on the streets he knew he would be safe because he could change his appearance and just blend in with the crowd, but most of all he needed to get away from this place. It was making his brain go soft. Gathering his things, packing the clothes he'd bought over the months, and the money he'd accumulated over the last few months from the burglaries he'd carried out, Harry opened the window and began the climb down the drainpipe to the ground. As he approached the ground, he could hear the sounds of people talking and he heard his name mentioned, but Harry didn't give them much thought as he just left the home and walked away.

As Harry neared Brighton station he realised he had the perfect opportunity to just travel the country and see the sights, and besides who would guess he was a homeless boy again who was running away? He had changed his appearance and now sported dark blond hair and grey eyes and he had made his nose a bit more beaky to give him a hawklike visage. As he boarded the train bound for Portsmouth where he would then get on a boat to the Isle of Wight where he would find new places to burgle, Harry considered his plans when he realised he didn't have any.

* * *

When he found himself in Ryde on the island, Harry wondered how long he could actually stay here. Brighton had been a bitter disappointment to him, but that was only because he had gotten careless. Here he would need to be more careful, less complacent in how he scavenged for food and water. He would have to use his burglary skills to ensure he had a stable income so he could buy his own food. For weeks Harry broke into houses and flats and looked for money and anything else he could flog before getting some basic foods. He didn't have a kitchen so he couldn't exactly cook anything complicated, so he was forced to make do at first but then he decided to simply break into a few holiday homes on the island, there were quite a few of them so he could cook larger meals. As long as he didn't leave an almighty mess he would be fine.

But one of the better comforts he had access to when he broke into holiday homes and places where he knew there were lets available was a bath and a shower so he could wash himself properly.

Harry spent over 5 months on the Isle of Wight before he boarded another ferry which would take him back to Southhampton, back to the mainland. As he got his new backpack filled with what other things he had stolen over the last few weeks, some clothes and a little food, he looked around the holiday home he had 'letted' for himself. He didn't feel any real shame in breaking into this place and using it for a few days, to him a holiday home was a hotel after spending so much time on the streets. But he saw it as the symptom of a much larger problem.

He was getting too soft.

Living on the streets had hardened him and made him strong, but when he was in the foster home he had made the mistake of becoming too comfortable than he had expected or hoped for since he had sworn it would never happen, living under a roof with hot water, gas and electricity laid on with a plentiful supply of food only a few meters away without having to go to all the trouble of shoplifting and sneaking away small pieces of food from an open stall, and being allowed to go to school without anyone knowing who he was. Harry was rapidly regaining those skills and the mindset he'd lost, and as he stood on the deck of the ferry as it drew away from the town of Newport, heading all the way towards Southhampton, he was delighted to be heading for another city.

* * *

Feedback would be nice.


	8. Chapter 8 Finally the Magical World

I hope you enjoy this chapter. Pleave leave some feedback, and as always I don't own Harry Potter.

Finally the Magical World.

It was nearly his 11th birthday, and Harry was very busy preparing to go to Hogwarts. He wasn't sure how to feel, he had been waiting, and dreading, the contact for a long time. He'd waited because he would, at last, be somewhere where he could learn about magic, and dreading it because he would have to face a world he had been born into but didn't know anything about, and he'd have to meet the man who'd shoved him into the Dursley's tender care.

Albus Dumbledore. It was funny, Harry reflected to himself a few days before his birthday, he had spent many long hours debating with himself and some rats living in the same space as he about Dumbledore's agenda, but now he simply didn't care. He'd been very busy for the last few years. Ever since he'd escaped Brighton - he often wondered how everyone had reacted to his escape - and then travelled up and down the country before returning to London.

He'd learned a great deal, thanks to a gang boss based in Manchester who'd been rumoured to be a former member of MI5 or MI6, but he'd never worked out if it was true or not. Either way, he'd learnt the boss had never shown himself, none of his lieutenants knew anything about him, and he always sent his orders via the post, sometimes to different operatives so no one knew anything about what he had in mind until it was too late.

Harry had read the some of the Sherlock Holmes stories, so he knew about Professor James Moriarty, and he knew how Moriarty had worked.

When Harry had been in Manchester, he had been a member of one of the boss' burglar gangs. It was probably one of the most professional groups he'd ever been in, far more than the one in London, and Harry could say it had inspired him.

He had tried to get closer to the boss. He had been inspired by the boss so he could learn the skills he needed to begin building his own criminal empire. He had no idea what awaited him in the magical world, but he wanted to be a success in the non-magical world. One thing he wished he had were the resources to go back to school, but if he did that he would need to answer questions. But if anything bad happened at Hogwarts despite waiting years for it to happen already, then he would leave and return. In the meantime, though he didn't have much of a leg to stand on so he couldn't exactly build an empire. Yet.

But it was tempting.

He did think he was lashing out at the world, but truthfully he didn't care. He had a long list of things he needed to clarify, but when he entered the magical world he planned to make sure there were ways he could escape if things became uncomfortable. And if they did, then he would simply make the magical world pay the price.

Harry would be the first person to admit that he had become a cold person. He was capable of warmth and kindness still, and considering the years where he had needed to fight in order to survive, to say nothing of what that pig Dudley had done to him in the final days of his time at Privet Drive, that was something to write home about.

Harry waited patiently for something to happen to whisk him away to Hogwarts, but he waited in vain. Petunia had said years ago that his mother had received a letter. He didn't receive one.

* * *

Rubeus Hagrid, the Keeper of Keys and the Grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was as pleased as a barrel-full of mead as he held the letter in his massive hands as he walked down the path from Hogwarts castle. Once past the gates, he would take the Portkey to the place where Harry Potter was living. It was late. Dumbledore suggested that the boy would enjoy a little birthday treat at night. Albus Dumbledore had just given him the job of re-introducing Harry Potter into the magical word. Hagrid hadn't seen the little boy in years, and he could easily remember taking the boy from the remains of the cottage they'd been hiding in away from You-Know-Who before that traitorous bastard Sirius Black gave them over to You-Know-Who and giving him to Dumbledore so he could be raised safely by his relatives.

But Hagrid was curious and worried. The boy had vanished from Privet Drive years ago, and Dumbledore had spent a lot of his time trying to find the boy since his relatives had been brutally murdered. Murdered! Hagrid hadn't been involved in the search, but he knew enough about the details to be afraid for the little nipper. Like Dumbledore and several others, Hagrid didn't believe You-Know-Who was dead. Hagrid had never seen the evil wizard in battle, but he hadn't been blind. He knew how obsessed the wizard was with living forever. People like that were not easy to defeat.

Thinking of You-Know-Who reminded Hagrid of who the wizard had been before he had even become known and feared as You-Know-Who. Dumbledore had never concealed from Hagrid the truth, for which Hagrid was grateful for. Just…..knowing that Tom Riddle was now You-Know-Who made him feel sick to his considerable stomach.

Hagrid had never really interacted with Riddle when they'd attended Hogwarts together, at least not on a friendly basis. The other boy had been a bullying bastard who never hid his dislike for muggles and muggleborns. They'd been totally different people, but he had seen the type of person Riddle had been at school, seen the crowd he had hung out with, and knew nothing good would come of it. But Hagrid had several reasons for disliking Riddle. It was because of Riddle and his little band that Hagrid, and quite a few others, had had a rough time at school, they were much more subtle about it than the bullies inside Slytherin house were today. But Riddle had gotten him expelled, and only Dumbledore himself believed in his innocence. Nobody else had - they had taken his record and gone ahead with that.

Hagrid could never forgive Riddle for that, a bastard who had gone on to cause more harm to others, and he hoped the evil bastard hadn't harmed little Harry Potter.

* * *

Harry had just fallen asleep when the banging started. He woke up, wincing at how uncomfortable the bed was, though he wasn't surprised since this house was usually let out, and grabbed the dressing gown he'd bought months before and headed downstairs. He was only a third of the way down when the door was smashed and fell to the ground.

In the doorway stood a massive figure of a man that seemed to have more hair than skin. The man looked around the hall and his eyes widened slightly when they laid eyes on the boy on the stairs. "Sorry 'bout tha," he said apologetically. He bent down and picked up the door and put it back in the doorway.

Harry came down the stairs slowly. "Who are you?" he asked, wondering if this man was a wizard, but if he was then he'd have to take a long look at the typical image of a wizard.

The giant turned, his eyes crinkled in a smile under his beard. "Rubeus Hagrid. Keeper o' Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. Bu' then y'd know 'bout Hogwarts." Suddenly the giant's expression altered, it became more shocked. "Wha' happened to yer face, 'arry?"

Harry blinked in surprise at the sudden question and he rushed into the living room and switched the light on. There was a mirror on the wall, and when he saw his reflection he cursed. The scar he'd had ever since Dudley had shoved that broken bottle into his face was visible. Harry realised what had happened - whenever he went to bed he usually always reverted to his base form, though he'd had to make an exception in Brighton since it would involve too many questions that could lead to them discovering who he was.

Hagrid had followed him into the living room, well followed as best as he could since with his size it was a tight squeeze.

Harry looked at him for a long moment. "Dudley Dursley did this to me," he said, deciding to be truthful.

Hagrid growled. "Yer cousin? Why?"

Surprised and now more than a little bit suspicious by Hagrid's knowledge about the Dursleys, Harry wondered how he should play this before he decided to lie. "I don't know," he replied before he sweetened the lie even more, "I think Dudley had a few mental problems - the Dursleys usually kept him as far from me as they could at home," he felt a bit sick referring to Number 4 as home, "in fact I ran away in fear when they were killed, but I didn't see anyone."

Hagrid was visibly upset. "Yer've lost too many people, 'arry," he said sadly.

 _God, these people are so gullible._ No sooner had the thought materialised in his mind that Harry decided to deepen the lie a bit. "Aunt Petunia told me a bit about Hogwarts before she….. Died," he finished with a fake croak in his throat. He didn't think his limited acting skills would fool many people, but it seemed they fooled Hagrid. "Can you tell me about it, and can you tell me about my parents - Aunt Petunia didn't really talk much about them besides how they were killed?" he asked hopefully.

* * *

Two hours later saw Hagrid sleeping on the sofa that seemed to sag a great deal under the weight of the giant on top of it. Nearby Harry was thinking on an armchair. Getting information from Hagrid was easier than getting water from a stone, but while Harry was slightly contemptuous about how gullible the huge man was, he had to admit he rather liked Hagrid. There was something charming about him.

Getting the story about the war gave him something to think about, and that was the reason he was still awake. Hagrid had not given the details about why this Lord Voldemort had tried to kill him, but from the sounds of it the Dark wizard had been determined. Harry hoped he found out the reasons behind Voldemort's desperation to hunt him down, because then he would have the justification he needed to make the old fucker pay the price.

But…. just hearing about the number of people who had been killed, the families. The Bones, the McKinnons, the Prewitts, and so on, it made him sick and itching to know more about the details of the war. He also heard from Hagrid about how Dumbledore had gone mad trying to find him, but Harry wasn't really worried.

What did worry him was the fact he was famous in the magical world. The Boy Who Lived they called him. What a fucking joke. The idea that people were glad Voldemort was gone, he could understand, but he didn't like the thought of being some type of hero to a people that didn't seem to care. But he would test the waters and see if one of his suspicions were true or not.

In the morning Hagrid took him out of the house to get his things for Hogwarts. Harry made a point of packing all his things, but he had no intention of telling Hagrid he was not coming back. He didn't have time to properly clean out the house like he normally did, but he didn't care. Before they'd left Harry had closed his eyes and focused on an image of his face where the scar he had come to hate, because it had never properly healed in the first place and poof! It was hidden once more.

Hagrid had been shocked. "Yer a metamorphmagus!"

"A what?" Harry replied, though he'd heard what Hagrid had said clearly. He had always wondered what kind of wizard could change their physical form, but now he knew.

"A metamorphmagus. Yer can be anybody, yer can change what yer look like w'out needin' a potion. They're really rare."

Mentally kicking himself for stupidly showing his talent off in the presence of anyone else, Harry shrugged his shoulders casually, doing his best to hide his slight concern about methamorphmaguses being rare because he had no idea what would happen if it got out he had this ability. "I call it my morphic power myself," he replied, "I discovered it by chance years ago, but I didn't know what its actual name was until now, so thanks."

Harry became annoyed with Hagrid on the way to wherever he would be getting his school supplies. The man was friendly enough, charming….but he was utterly clueless. He also didn't stop pointing at things in the streets that Harry took for granted, and he would always say something about 'Muggles' which Harry had found out meant ordinary, non-magical people. Harry wished Hagrid would shut up; all the things he was saying sounded derogatory.

* * *

In the Tube it was even worse since the man took over more than one seat, and when the train stopped at the station they needed Hagrid got stuck and complained about the seats being tiny and the trains being slow.

When Hagrid took him into the Leaky Cauldron, a pub that in the non-magical world had the feel of a tavern from the Tudor period, he had wondered if the magical world even knew about hygiene standards. The concerns he had about his fame only grew when Hagrid announced who he was to Tom, the innkeeper at the Leaky Cauldron, and from there everyone crowded around him, wanting to shake his hand. Harry had needed to fight the urge to, well fight back, reminding himself these people had been terrified with Voldemort running around, so it was logical they'd want to meet him, but he didn't like the way they crowded around him.

Diagon Alley was like walking back through time. It was like a blend between medieval times, the Victorian era, and the Elizabethan period. When Harry encountered the goblins, heard from Hagrid how treacherous they were, he didn't see them like that, he wondered if he could use them to help him in some way. Harry managed to hide his surprise and worry when he found out Hagrid, and by extension Dumbledore, had his vault key, but he didn't say a word.

This wasn't the time to be difficult, but he would investigate further to see if anyone had tampered or stolen from his account.

Hagrid behaved suspiciously in the bank. He spoke quietly to one of the goblins, passed over a letter and whispered about a vault. The goblin took him and a very ill looking Hagrid down into the catacombs, real catacombs like the ones in Paris; he had heard about the catacombs in Paris, but he had never seen them besides always wanting to visit them. When Hagrid commented to him after he'd taken in the sight of the contents of the vault that his parents wouldn't have left him with nothing, he had never thought about money.

The second vault that contained nothing but a small, grubby package reminded him of the whispered chat Hagrid had had with the goblin in the lobby. Harry had been curious, but he had just shrugged his shoulders. It didn't make any difference to him, so unless it affected him at some point later then he would remember this little event.

* * *

Getting a room at the Leaky Cauldron was simple enough - he had already explained to Hagrid, who already knew the Dursleys were dead, so there was no one in the muggle world to take care of him, so the giant had been confused about where he could stay, so it hadn't taken long for Harry to persuade him he could stay in Diagon Alley.

Hagrid hadn't been pleased by that, but he had agreed since he had no choice. Harry had needed 10 minutes to explain to the giant bloke he had needed to either live in abandoned buildings, in shop doorways, or had needed to break into houses to get out of the cold and into the warmth. After that there was nothing he could really do.

He'd gone, at least, but he'd promised Harry that he'd inform Professor Dumbledore, let him know about his living arrangements. Despite not being happy with the idea of the same man who'd pushed him into the Dursley's tender mercies, Harry had nodded, privately deciding to make some arrangement to find a place to live so Dumbledore wouldn't interfere.

* * *

Harry was thankful he had the chance to explore the magical world after waiting for the opportunity to come here for so long Granted, Diagon Alley wasn't the whole magical world, but it was a start. The first visit he made was to Gringotts. He hadn't had a decent impression of the goblins the first time round, but he quickly realised that they didn't like wizards. They hated thieves - well, thieves who stole from them, otherwise they genuinely didn't give a shit about people who stole from others.

That attitude made them perfect in Harry's mind, and dozens of different ideas came to mind about how he could use the goblins to help him with criminal activities.

"Excuse me," Harry said to the goblin whom he was speaking to about the Potter family account; it was still something to take in, he had money. "Yesterday Hagrid took me to Mr Ollivander's, the wand maker, and I was wondering if there were other places where I can purchase a wand?"

He had asked the creepy wand maker about wands the day before, but with Hagrid in the same room, he had needed to be careful about his questioning.

The goblin nodded. "Yes, there are. The Ministry frowns on young wizards purchasing more than one wand because the more wands someone possesses, the more problematic it is to monitor the spells especially in the muggle world."

Harry was curious about the Ministry's detection techniques, but he figured that he would find out about them soon enough, but he wanted information now. "How well does the Ministry detect magic outside places like Diagon Alley?"

"There are magical detectors in the Ministry that cover the entire country, including Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. There is a spell known as the Trace that's placed on young witches and wizards that makes it easier for the Ministry to monitor them, especially if they live in the muggle world," the goblin replied, "it's applied when students board the Hogwarts Express, which explains why students are expected to travel on a form of transport which is slower compared to other methods. The Trace is designed to work on young wizards and witches below the age of 17, and it's impossible to reapply afterwards since the spell is designed to work on people who are young. The Ministry uses magical detectors to pick up spell use, but they prefer witches and wizards who use wands which are easy to track, but it's not impossible to buy a custom wand."

Harry frowned. "What's the difference between an ordinary wand and a custom wand?"

The goblin gave a sharklike smile. "An ordinary wand wears down very quickly, whereas a custom wand lasts for a long time. The Ministry frown on them for dozens of reasons, but you should hear it from a wand crafter." The goblin paused as he quickly picked up a piece of parchment and scrawled an address and name on it before passing it over to Harry, who took it. The piece of parchment read 'Mosiac's Wands.'

* * *

After leaving Gringotts, Harry headed to the wand shop. As he walked away from the bank, he reflected that things had gone very well. He had found out that his parents had a flat in London that they had stayed in after they'd left Hogwarts, though it was mostly for his mother before she and his father had gotten engaged, the flat was still out there and it was empty.

Harry was thankful his parents had purchased the flat, so he didn't need to, but he was pleased he had a permanent abode - it was frustrating finding a house or a flat that was being let out, but it was more frustrating finding one which was empty. With a flat he could take care of nearly all of his problems at once. He could clearly remember Hagrid's promise to speak to Dumbledore, but Harry didn't want to speak to the old wizard after the mess he had made with the Dursleys.

He didn't want to go through something similar again. It had taken him years to achieve some degree of independence, and now Hagrid had discovered his metamorphmagus ability there was no telling what Dumbledore would do. It was just a pity he didn't know the old wizard on a personal level yet to get an idea of his nature, but he had no intention of letting him dictate where he could live or where he couldn't - the old man hadn't seemed to care about the abuse he'd suffered at the Dursleys, but then he had had only one point of view, his own.

Anyway, he would worry about that later, right now he was focused on the wand shop. It was further away from Gringotts than the average shop, but it was amazing just how large the place actually was. Finding the shop was relatively easy. It was tucked into a corner near a busy street. Harry walked towards the shop, seeing the beautiful wands in the windows. Each one of them looked like a work of art, similar to Ollivander's wands, but these wands looked more elaborate in a simple way.

Harry studied the ones in the shop window for a long moment, letting his eyes compare the wands with the ones Ollivander had handed to him yesterday. Those wands were simpler than the wands he was seeing now. They looked like simple wooden sticks that had a bit of those wooden sculptures found in the muggle world.

But these didn't look like wooden sculptures to Harry. No, it was clear that while some parts of the wand were wooden, they had other materials like ceramics, one of the wands had the pattern Harry had often seen at the bottom of ceramic bowls, those little squares you only found in ceramics. Others had shells made from crystal.

Harry walked into the shop. It was much more neater than Ollivander's shop, that was for sure. This wand shop didn't have shelves and shelves full of boxes haphazardly scattered all over the place. Instead the place reminded Harry of one of those bars or cafes that were cropping up all over the place that had dark brick worlds covered with leather furniture, and old fashioned lamps and artefacts. There was a massive counter in a corner and an inner door leading to another part of the shop, but the shop was completely empty.

"Hello?" Harry called out, feeling deja vu after Ollivanders and he wondered if wand shops were all the same where the owners didn't bother greeting the customers.

The inner door opened, and a youngish man stepped out. He had long dark hair with strands of grey. His eyes were alert and blazed with a quicksilver intelligence. He had aquiline features, and he wore a smarter suit than the shabby thing Ollivander had worn.

The man studied the young wizard standing in his shop, and Harry felt as though he were being proved inside and out. "Welcome to my shop, but may I ask why you need a wand when you already have one in your pocket?"

Harry made no attempt to hide his surprise. "How did you know I already had a wand?"

The wizard speared him with a look. "Do you honestly think I would just sell a wand to anyone if they had a wand already? There are spells on this shop that can pick up the signature of another wand. So, why are you here?"

Harry took a deep breath, wondering now if he had made a mistake in coming here. He took out the wand Ollivander had sold him yesterday and passed it over to the other wizard, who took it with a look a surprise. "Why are you handing me this wand?" he asked. He sounded like he was a moment away from being insulted.

"That wand is the brother wand of You-Know Who's," Harry had said bluntly, deciding to obey the unspoken rule to call the bastard by the alias, "and considering my history with the son of a bitch, do you honestly think I would want to have such a connection?"

Harry knew it was a stretch to admit to the connection he had with Voldemort, but he wanted the wand crafter to realise the seriousness of his presence.

The wand crafter stiffened and studied his customer closely before his eyes widened. "You're Harry Potter," he stated in a whisper, but he didn't really sound awed. He sounded more like he was stating a fact. "Why can't I see your scar?"

Harry closed his eyes and concentrated on the face and he revealed everything, including the round scar around his eye where Dudley had stabbed him with the bottle. He smiled mentally when the wand crafter gasped at his mutilated face, asking himself whether or not he should keep it like that, and show the rest of the wizards his life had not been perfect; he had come across some truly stupid things in the bookshop when Hagrid had taken him shopping, and he had no intention of letting that lie, but they'd probably suspect he'd gotten them in battle with evil goblins, or something.

He opened his eyes.

"Does that answer your question?" he asked rhetorically. "I don't want any connection to Lord Voldemort," he went on, uncaring about the taboo the wizards had over the psychotic bastard now the crafter knew who he was, "So I have come to you."

Harry had no intention of telling the man about his other still unmade plans. "And I also felt something odd about that wand, like it was forced on me?"

The wand crafter frowned and he took out his own wand, and he waved it over Harry's wand, and his frown deepened. "Hmm, yes, there are a number of spells over this wand, so someone definitely wants you to have this particular wand. You got this from Ollivander's, yes? Well, usually he tests you on the types of wands he feels are suited for your magic. He has the means at his disposal like all in the wand business for that part, but its not uncommon, just frowned upon when someone tampers with the wands to match them up for someone in particular."

Harry's voice became dangerous. "You mean someone wanted me to have that wand, but why?"

"Probably so then when you encounter Lord Voldemort again, you will deepen the connection between you," the wand crafter replied, smirking when he saw the surprise on Harry's face. "Surprised I said his name, are you? Does it really surprise you to meet other people who say his name? No matter. Anyway, I will help you because I want to see Lord Voldemort gone."

"You….. You believe he is still alive? Everyone else believes he's dead," Harry said, Hagrid had told him that Dumbledore believed he was alive, meaning that Hagrid instantly believed it, but this was a man who didn't seem to have any link whatsoever to Dumbledore. It was refreshing.

"Lord Voldemort was obsessed with immortality, he would have driven himself to study magic that no one in their right mind would ever touch, that type of person would not die easily," the wand crafter replied. "Come with me."

The wand crafter took Harry into another part of the shop. It was a large room with a wooden floor with a glass disc in the centre. The wand crafter pointed to it. "Stand on that, and I will scan your magic and your body to get an idea of the type of wand you need, what it should be made from," he said.

Harry did as he was told. The disc lit up and Harry was surrounded by a soft aura before he was told to step off it. The wand crafter was standing next to a copper tube with a small bell screwed into it. It took a moment before something happened, but the bell rang once, and the wizard opened the bell. What an interesting idea, Harry thought to himself, somehow the bell and the tube reminded him of those pneumatic message tubes you found in the muggle world. Somehow the disc sent the results to the tube.

The wizard took out a scroll of parchment and studied it and was silent for a few minutes. "Hmm, you have a lot of spells on you, most of them have been broken over the years as you grew up, but some of them are still there. And it looks like Albus Dumbledore had something to do with most of them," he said, his voice darkening at the end.

This was just getting worse and worse. Despite all of Harry's intentions to give Dumbledore a chance while giving himself enough room to live his life, it seemed as though fate was giving him more and more reason to not trust the old wizard.

Trying, and failing, to keep the growing anger he was feeling to a minimum, Harry had one question on his mind. "What kind of spells did he use?"

"Oh some of the spells are quite normal," the wand crafter said, reassuring him a little despite the dark, ominous tone he had used before to announce what Dumbledore had done, "you see, when witches and wizards are young, there are periods where their magic acts up. It's perfectly normal, it's like puberty, the body is always growing up. The magic is no different, but depending on how powerful they are it's usually a good idea to have some kind of a dampener on their powers to stop it going out of control."

"So," Harry said slowly, "it's normal?"

"To a point," the wand crafter replied, "most magical parents have to take the child whose magic is acting up to a specialist at 's, the wizarding hospital," he clarified when he saw Harry's look of incomprehension, "but specialists would make sure their work was carefully applied and gentle on the child's magic so it wouldn't stop the development. But Dumbledore is not a specialist. He is a powerful wizard, yes, but while he knows the spells, he doesn't have the knowledge to control how powerful or even how long the spells should last. Most of these dampening spells are timed to fail when the magic has matured by a certain number of years. But the blocks on your magic have lasted for years."

Harry shook his head, remembering how the Dursleys had reacted whenever his magic had played up. "Why did he do it?"

"I don't know," the wand crafter replied honestly. "But it is a good thing you haven't really used that wand Ollivander provided. The wand would work for you, but it would have reinforced the blocks."

"Why is he doing this?"

"It could be his idea of stopping you from becoming too dangerous," the wand crafter shrugged, "don't depend on me for answers. Dumbledore usually has reasons for everything he does. But sometimes he makes mistakes, sometimes he doesn't tell everyone the whole truth, and it sometimes causes problems in the long run. Now, let's get to work. Step off the disc and come over here."

Harry followed the wizard over to a table and chair with a bookshelf right behind him and two filing cabinets on both sides. "Now, while your magic is constrained, there is a dark element in your scar; I'd go back to the goblins and then come back here to get a more accurate idea of what the wand should be made from and what it contains as part of the core. The readings are messed with because of it, and Dumbledore's tampering doesn't really help much. Go back to the goblins, and tell them to perform a checkup for you, and then come back here with the results."

* * *

The goblins had not been happy with the results of the scan. They called the thing in his scar a horcrux, and when he found out what it was, Harry felt physically sick, particularly when he found out what it was meant to do. Everyone had repeated that Voldemort had been fascinated with immortality, but going so far to split his soul.

Harry had never seen the point of immortality. Sure, living for a long time might be a good thing, but what was the point of living for hundreds of years and seeing everything around you constantly collapse and fall only to be rebuilt again? The goblins had taken the soul piece out, but they hadn't destroyed it, but they told Harry what to expect and had given him a horcrux detector. The young wizard had been surprised until the goblins had pointed out Voldemort would have made more than one, and they had even told him the history of the bloody things.

Apparently ancient wizards had developed the horcrux as a means of gaining immortality, theorising that the soul was the one obstacle in achieving it, and since they knew creatures like vampires had strange souls after the moment of conversion, they decided that splitting the soul was the key. But there were so many weaknesses. A horcrux was a painful process, and inherently dangerous for the wizard or the witch. According to the goblins so many artefacts had been lost because of horcruxes needing some sort of container to keep them safe, and so many had been destroyed because people hunting them down had destroyed them in the wrong manner. The best way was to drain them as possible and take the main soul of the wizard or the witch and imprison them for all time, or simply destroy the containment vessel containing that wizards main soul and their magic.

Harry and the goblins agreed that Voldemort must have made more than one horcrux over the years, because it was doubtful that a wizard with his higher than average knowledge of magic had just stumbled across a passage in a book on a sunny day and felt it was the best means to gain immortality. The only problem was how many of them had he made.

Harry decided he'd cross that bridge when he came to it, for now he just wanted to sort his life out before he dealt with Voldemort. He needed a plan first, and he would form it over time, but not now.

He went back to the wand crafter, who was pleased to see him. After repeating the process with the disc, it took slightly longer for the parchment to appear from the tube, but when it did the wand crafter seemed happy.

"I think I've found the ideal materials for your wand, Mr Potter. The Ollivander wand is a simply Holly, phoenix feather construct, but this wand will have have a core comprised of Chimera heartstring and the brainstem, with Nundu heartstring in a bath of Chimera and Nundu blood. Hmm, did you know that you're a parselmouth?"

"A what?" Harry asked sharply. The crafter looked at him funnily for a second, but then he went on as if Harry hadn't spoken.

"A parselmouth, someone who can speak to snakes," the wand crafter clarified. "If I were you, I wouldn't reveal that little talent unless you have no alternative, many people see parseltongue as an evil form of magic."

"What do you think about it?" Harry asked gently.

The wand crafter shrugged. "I've encountered parselmouths before in places like India. They're revered there, and in other countries with dangerous snakes like Black Mambas or Sea snakes, it's a good idea to be to speak to snakes so then they don't decide to bite or crush you to death. With a magical translator, I even spoke in parseltongue and had a fairly decent conversation with a snake, even if it didn't like the fact I was cheating to speak to it." He finished with a chuckle at the memory. Harry smiled as well.

"I think to take advantage of the parseltongue ability, your wand will have veins containing basilisk venom. Of all the magical snakes in the world, the basilisk is the most feared and the most powerful, with the hydra being a close contender. The venom is powerful and it should boost the power of your spells by a large fraction."

The wand crafter took a deep breath, "The core will be contained by a crystalline casing which will be stronger than holly or any other wood," he went on, but how would you feel about the rest of the wand?"

Harry had already thought of that. "Is it possible for you to use the Ollivander wand as a template for the design? I want the general shape to be the same, but I want it to have a few cosmetic qualities different from the Ollivanders. Is that possible?"

The wand crafter's tone became more uncertain. "You want me to base your custom wand on Ollivanders? Why?"

Harry sighed. "Not all of the wand, just enough of it to give it the basic appearance. I grew up on the streets because I escaped from an abusive home Dumbledore put me in, and I learnt that sometimes you have to trick people. I don't want people to take one look at my wand, and realise its not an Ollivander's wand."

The wand crafter seemed satisfied. "That's feasible enough," he said slowly, "yes, I can do that."

"Thanks. Can I ask you something, its a question that's been on my mind for a while?"

"Certainly," the wand crafter replied.

Harry had already heard about the differences between the wands made in this shop to the ones Ollivander made, but that had come from a goblin. "What's the difference between what you do and what Ollivander does, and why everyone nearly go to him?"

The wand crafter chuckled at the question. "I should have seen that one coming, shouldn't I?" he asked rhetorically. "Well, in short, wand makers make wands in bulk. Wand crafters like me make wands specially for people. But when it comes to education everyone is encouraged to buy a wand from a wand maker who is certified. It's Ministry policy. There are a few reasons. You see, witches and wizards still develop over the course of their education. Magical education typically lasts for 7-8 years, depending on whether or not an apprentice or internship is needed for the career, and because of that the simpler the wand, the better. But some get a custom wand regardless because its for a more powerful match, though the Ministry frown on this arrangement."

The wizard thought a bit more. "Most witches and wizards use wands which are simple because as time goes on and their power increases every year, its a good way to exercise their magic before the wand finally breaks down."

"Will my custom wand break down?"

"No. The wand core never breaks down, the outer casing will. It's made of a type of wood because natural materials are the best materials for controlling magic. Have you ever seen wood exposed to heat, I'm not necessarily speaking about fire, but heat?"

"Yeah, it smoulders," Harry nodded as he began to understand. "Are you saying the spells burn the wood?"

"Over time, yes," the crafter replied. "The more powerful the spells, the more the wood breaks down. Many wizards and witches still use Ollivander wands because they are easier to buy than custom wands, but some people do buy wands made by myself and my competitors. Another reason for people buying wands made by Ollivander is because of the possibility of being expelled."

"Expelled?" Harry repeated, he hadn't expected this.

"Everyone who goes to a school like Hogwarts soon becomes a member of an elite," the crafter There are four houses in Hogwarts, and each one has a unique history and place in the magical world. When someone joins that elite, it's an expression of their personality. None of the houses of Hogwarts are perfect, but they have produced amazing people over the years, but they've produced people that don't deserve the right to a magical education. A place at a magical school is the highlight of any young witch or wizard's life, because it allows them access to the power of magic itself. Every young witch and wizard who receives a place at any school should be grateful and happy they are taking their place in the magical world," the wand crafter explained.

Harry was beginning to understand, he thought. "And if they're expelled, that means they're not allowed to practice magic? Their wands are snapped?"

"Yes," the crafter replied. "A wand is the symbol of a wizard or a witch, giving us access to the Power of Magic itself. When wizards or witches are expelled, their wands are snapped. It usually happens with a member of the Ministry of Magic, and when it happens that person is immediately blacklisted against practicing magic of any kind. They're forbidden to own a wand for the rest of their lives. Every single wand maker places a spell on the wands they make, its an indicator of whether that wand was snapped by the headteacher or the Ministry, who will notify them of the reason. Once that person is known to the maker, that person can never practice magic again if they're expelled. It's a harsh policy, but it also reinforces the Statute of Magical Secrecy. Dozens of young witches and wizards who were expelled before the Ministry took its finger out of its arsehole and dealt with them caused a lot of damage. They'd had their wands snapped, but they'd bought replacements and used them to get revenge."

No wonder the Ministry made that decision, Harry thought to himself.

"How should I use the custom wand?" he asked.

"Use the wand you bought from Ollivanders," the crafter advised, "to practice the spells and get the hang of them before you use the custom wand. You'll need to have that wand registered, I'm not letting that wand leave this shop without all the paperwork."

Harry mentally cringed at the thought of people becoming aware of him owning that wand. He had hoped to keep it secret so then no one would interfere with his plans. But it looked like he would have no alternative in the matter.

"How come you are asking me about the difference between wand makers and wand crafters?" The wizard asked him with a frown on his face as something important occurred to him. "You should have read about the recommendations from the muggleborn guides, if you were raised outside the magical world?"

Harry frowned, a sinking suspicion coming over him. "What guides?" he asked slowly.

"You didn't buy them, but you should have done. Who showed you around Diagon Alley?"

"Hagrid, the Gamekeeper of Hogwarts."

The wand crafter rubbed his forehead. "Mr Potter, you should have met one of the Professors of the school. They would have brought you into the alley, shown you Gringotts and the shops, where to go and where not to go, and answered your questions while making sure you bought the guidebooks to help you learn about our culture. Hagrid, while a nice man, doesn't have any right to show you around."

Harry had been listening to the wand crafter with a growing sense of dread. Ever since he had met Hagrid and learnt what he had did at the school, he had wondered why he was even showing a kid the way into the magical world. A professor would have brought him into the magical world, into the alley? Harry had seen the clothing of the witches and wizards shopping outside the shop, and he guessed that a professor would not have enjoyed wearing cloaks with robes with pointed hats around the muggle world, and he doubted they would have pointed at cars, parking meters, and other things and talked about the people who used or made them in such a derogatory manner.

Hagrid had admitted Dumbledore had sent him, but why?

"One of the things Hagrid did was keep me away from several things," Harry commented, wondering why he was being so open with the wand crafter who had no reason to trust him, "in fact, I'm sure I saw a few books in Flourish and Blotts which could have been the guides, and when I went to the shop selling the trunks, he made sure I bought a trunk that was simple, in fact he bought it for me himself."

The wand crafter's frown hadn't left his face, but now it seemed he was a moment away from either scowling or crinkling up his eyes in confusion.

"That doesn't make any sense," he said at last, "I don't understand why Dumbledore would want you to stay away from those things, Mr Potter, but if I were you I'd buy those books and read them up, quick. Those books are required reading for muggleborns, and since you weren't raised in the magical world, there are many things about our culture you need to know."

Suffice to say when Harry left the shop, leaving the wand crafter to finish his latest commission, he left with a lot on his mind.

* * *

Standing in the flat his parents had bought, Harry had to admit to himself, his parents had had taste. As Harry walked through the flat, he was trying to put aside the fact he had to register the wand he'd ordered from the crafter. It posed a few problems, and it made him wish he had found a crafter who had a more…..shadier business, and didn't care for the Ministry, but it was too late now.

Harry had decided to explore the flat, but remain in Diagon Alley for another few days so he could explore it, and buy a few more books to read up on the magical world. The moment he'd left the wand crafter's shop, he'd headed for Flourish and Blotts, bought the books and he'd taken them back to the room he was staying in at the pub. But he had left for the flat his parents had bought, deciding he had plenty of time to adjust his long term plans with the new information he'd learnt.

The more he learnt about Dumbledore, the less he trusted him. Sure, Hagrid didn't strike him immediately as a malicious person, but he seemed to nurse a loyalty to Dumbledore that bordered on religious fervor.

That kind of loyalty worried Harry. But what worried him even more were the concerns he had about Dumbledore; the spells cast on him and the Ollivander wand, the fact he had Harry's key was a concern, but it wasn't an immediate one, the fact he had sent Hagrid, someone not even qualified to take anyone from the muggle world to Diagon Alley, someone who seemed to keep him away from vital books to help him learn about the magical world, who made sure that his own trunk was a simple model.

None of it made any sense.

Harry shook his head, he would deal with Dumbledore in his own time, but for now he just wanted time to himself, where he was near the world where magic was just a fantasy component in books and films.

The flat was certainly spacious, and he could see himself living here without any real trouble. It was easily large enough with its three bedrooms - had his parents been planning on using this flat to raise him, and perhaps even more children, or were the two extra bedrooms meant for friends? - And there was what looked like a potions laboratory complete with a cauldron made from copper (copper? Why not pewter, or did copper have a property pewter lacked?) and a library that was well stocked. Just looking at the titles showed Harry that his mother had loved reading books. It was strange seeing books which were clearly magical near books that were written outside the magical world. As Harry perused the titles, something caught his eye on the far side of the room, and he headed over to it.

There in front of him were a number of photographs set in beautiful, but simple frames. Harry picked one of them up and studied it. For someone who had never even seen a photo of his parents, seeing his mother fascinated and terrified him. He gently traced his finger over the image of his mother, who in the photograph must have been in her teens. She was very beautiful in the photo, her emerald green eyes, which were identical, though larger than Harry's weren't like her son, who'd inherited them. Harry's eyes were hard, ice-like, an unhesitating image of how hard and painful his life had become, and with the scar around his eyes it was enhanced. More than once he had glared at people with his green eyes and silenced them.

But his mother's eyes were what his eyes should be; sheltered, mature, but innocent, showing someone who was happy and not someone who'd actually committed murder.

It took a while for him to switch his attention to the other people in the photo, and he instantly wished he hadn't when his eyes landed on an image of a younger Petunia Dursley. Just looking at her, the way she had her nose high in the air as if she believed she was better than everyone when in fact she was no special that anybody else, and the direction her head was facing away from her sister so then she didn't lay eyes on her, reminded Harry of just how finite and pathetic the woman had been.

The Petunia in the photo was younger than the woman he had known, and murdered, but the bitterness was there written all over her face, the pursed lips and the haughty expression on her face as though she believed she were better than her sister. Harry had never seen a picture of either his mother or his aunt together, though he wasn't surprised considering how jealous Petunia had been, but he had to wonder if the woman had been jealous of Lily long before they'd even discovered magic existed.

He turned his attention to the two other people in the photo. He had never seen a picture of his grandparents, from either his mother's side of the family or his fathers', but seeing them for the first time in his life made him wonder if Petunia had had a major argument with them about magic. That would make sense, but he didn't really care about his aunt's history.

But he did care about his grandparents images. He wished he'd been raised by them, because it was obvious his mother had been happy and it was clear she hadn't been abused for being a witch (or a 'freak' as Petunia had so imaginatively described people with magic) by them, but he had no idea what had happened to them.

His grandparents were similar and yet different from their children. His grandfather, for instance, was tall, lithe, with sandy blonde hair that Harry could tell was an exact shade for Petunia's, but while he had a more masculine facial shape it was similar to Petunia's, though it didn't make him look like a horse.

His blue eyes and warm expression were those of a kind man, and there was something about him that seemed to charm everyone, and even though the photo Harry found himself liking the man despite never meeting him.

His grandmother, on the other hand, was practically an older version of his mother, but there was also a bit of Petunia there, too - her face was longer than Lily's, but she didn't look like a horse that had been mutated into something resembling a human being. She had the same hair colour and identical green eyes.

How had these two died? Had Voldemort killed them, or had they simply died because their time was up?

Harry sighed and put the photograph back on the table, and he resumed his sweep through the flat, but the photo had stirred up feelings he had tried to suppress for a long time because he had been trying to survive. As much as he hated the Dursleys, he had to be grateful to them, because without them he wouldn't have become the person he was today. But he would have liked an opportunity to know his grandparents.

As he explored the flat, he wondered how he could keep it hidden from the Ministry and Dumbledore in case things at Hogwarts went south. It might seem paranoid, but Harry had learnt the hard way it was better to have a few escape plans in case the main plan failed or just stopped being practical.

He had the idea in his mind of removing the record of his family owning the flat and simply storing it in the vault of someone who happened to be Harry Potter. He doubted the goblins would care, they didn't seem to hold the Ministry in any high esteem, after all.

But while he was impressed by their strict client confidentiality code, he doubted many of them thought much about that either. It was a risk, but as long as he could keep most of the details, and perhaps even find a way to get his post without anyone noticing, he might get away with it in the long run.

* * *

It's getting more and more worse, but the next chapter will see Harry being sorted. Please don't give me suggestions because I've already worked out which house he will sorted in.

I hope you liked the bit about the custom wands - in the film, Ollivander commented it was only yesterday Harry's parents bought their first wands, so it makes a sort of sense the Ministry wants students to learn magic with spells that eventually break down through use. Also in case you're wondering, no, Hagrid didn't tell Harry he had been expelled from Hogwarts - I didn't think it was relevant, and besides without Dudley there scoffing down a birthday cake, there was no need for a tail, and the house was more than warm enough than the shack the Dursleys so he didn't need to light a fire.

Also, in this story, Dumbledore didn't see the point in hiding Tom Riddle's future identity from his Order members. While this Dumbledore will keep secrets, it won't be to the same extent as the other versions of Dumbledore out there.


	9. Chapter 9 Hogwarts

Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter, just this story.

Feedback always welcome.

Hogwarts.

Albus Dumbledore was just finishing off some last minute paperwork in his office, the old wizard and his staff were running around the castle, catching up with their paperwork, checking on the kitchens and the cleaning staff to make sure the school was ready after a long summer where the castle was fumigated and thoroughly cleaned after months of being occupied by students, who caused different kinds of mess from pranks, potion accidents, etc, etc.

Now everyone was running themselves ragged trying to make last minute checks for the timetable bookings, making sure the new muggleborn number was accurate. It never ended.

Albus Dumbledore paused and rubbed his head, hoping that the work would keep him from thinking about the boy he desperately wanted in Hogwarts.

Harry Potter.

Ever since the boy had vanished from the now dead Dursley family, Albus had begun to think about the way he had handled the last Potter. The Boy-Who-Lived, the Soul Survivor of the Potter Massacre, The Little Hero, or the little Leader of the Light, or whatever you wanted to call him, was someone who occupied at least 50% of Dumbledore's thought processes each day. The names the boy had received over the years mattered little to Dumbledore, in fact, he had gone out of his way to ensure the little boy didn't go through what he himself had in the aftermath of that duel with Grindelwald.

While it had opened the doors needed to get into powerful places, Dumbledore didn't like being famous sometimes. He sometimes had problems with the magical world who viewed him as their biggest problem solver, believing he was automatically invincible and couldn't do anything wrong simply because he had luckily defeated a Dark Lord and not realising the battle could have gone in so many directions, but he had made many mistakes over the years. And by being given power from dozens of positions, Dumbledore found it hard to deal with the conservationists in the magical world who made it harder for Dumbledore to carry out his long term plans.

By far the old wizard's most favourite post was the Headmaster of Hogwarts. His mindset was if he couldn't change the minds of the adults, he can then influence the minds of their children. It had worked, for the most part.

Too many mistakes for the old man to really believe he was doing any good, and besides he had dozens of regrets. Sometimes he wished he had done something, anything, to mitigate what Tom Riddle was doing, but there was only so much he could have done to help the boy. One option that had been open to him, which was to simply kill Riddle, but after he had seen something different in Riddle's magical aura after Myrtle had been murdered 50 years ago, he had tried to research what could have caused it, and because he hadn't known what Riddle could have done to himself, Dumbledore had been hesitant to try to kill the Slytherin prefect.

Albus wasn't happy with the way he had handled the first war with Voldemort, either. It was certainly smaller scale than the one Gellert had masterminded in the 40s; he and his old friend/lover might have thought up ways to rule the magical world and take over the muggle world and end any more potential threats the muggles could pose, but Dumbledore hadn't liked what he had received over the years even if he had hoped to gain some degree of recognition and fame.

But Voldemort was more twisted than the more sensible Gellert, who had planned his moves in advance, and had looked to building power bases in other countries while holding a single base of operations so then fighting him would prove more difficult. It had been surprising how someone so handsome and intelligent could degenerate into something so monstrous. In fact, if someone had seen the future and realised that both Grindelwald and Voldemort would become two of the most dangerous wizards in history, and compared their styles they would have been surprised.

So many people had died in the war, and Dumbledore had done his best to mitigate the worst of it, and he had even sat in on the trials, but unfortunately his desire to see many of the Death Eaters get what was coming to them foiled partly because of the overriding stupidity of the Ministry.

Hagrid hadn't helped, either. While the half giant was loyal and basically good hearted, he wasn't really discreet. Just after Voldemort had been defeated by little Harry, Hagrid had gotten drunk in quite a few places and he blabbed about what he knew had happened, and the Boy-Who-Lived thing had started there. If Dumbledore had had his say, no one would have known, and just believed that Lily and James Potter themselves had done something to save their son from any potential consequence, but he hadn't told Hagrid to avoid the pubs. It was a bad idea.

So too had putting the boy with the Dursleys in the first place. Minerva had been right when she'd reported they were the worst sort of muggles imaginable, but Dumbledore had ignored her, not because he had wanted to, but since he knew the boy didn't have any direct relatives if you didn't count Andromeda Tonks, who would certainly have raised the boy well, he had wanted the boy to live with the Dursleys because he had wanted the boy to stay away from the magical world.

There were good reasons. The first one was because of the blood protection, he knew Lily had used something unique, something special, to protect her son, but because he had little idea what it was, he had needed to improvise and blood magic fitted the bill marvelously. The only problem was the only people on the planet who had Lily's blood besides Harry were Petunia and Dudley Dursley. He'd never met either muggle, but he remembered the letters the woman had sent, begging him to let her attend Hogwarts, but he had refused. It was possible she could have studied subjects like Care of Magical Creatures and Potions, subjects where magic wasn't really used, but he knew the traditionalists would eat him alive, and besides Hogwarts was a school for magical people, not muggles. It was a pity Lily's parents had died shortly after he'd left Hogwarts, but there was nothing he could do about that. It was essential the boy stay away from the magical world so then he couldn't know what he was capable of. It was also essential that the boy be kept away from places where the horcrux in his scar could be found, it was just as essential the boy dies, so then he, Dumbledore, could kill Voldemort and end the war once and for all.

The second reason was related to the first, but this one was he hoped Petunia would grow up a little. Albus had lost count of the number of letters the stupid woman had mailed to him after she had gotten the hint she couldn't come to Hogwarts, but that hadn't stopped her from trying to send letters telling him Lily wasn't the saintly student she 'pretended' to be. It was actually very petty of her to send those letters, not to mention pathetic. He had sent her a howler one day during Lily's fourth year.

He could remember what he had spelled the letter to yell, "If you do not stop sending those offensive letters to me where you have lied about your sister, who is far more mature than you are, then I will personally have you arrested for harassment. You do not want me to do that, magical punishments are….severe. Grow up, Miss Evans, before you look back on your life and find it wanting."

Petunia had never contacted him again, and for that he had been thankful, but it had been a risk for him to leave Harry with her. But she had taken the boy in, and Dumbledore hadn't seen any reason to worry.

The third reason was a little contradictory to the second reason. He had wanted the boy to be taken in by Petunia, yes, but he had also wanted the boy to be shown some discomfort in much the same way Tom Riddle had been to strengthen the boy, because he knew Andromeda Tonks would have raised him well without him knowing what hardship felt like. That way the prophecy's line about the two being equals would become more and more true. Unfortunately the Dursleys had gone too far, he had not imagined the number of times he had needed to prevent the muggle police, the neighbours and the teachers who had become concerned about the boy's mistreatment. Albus almost laughed if it wasn't funny, mistreatment? Hah! Abuse more like. He had needed to act otherwise the boy would be taken away, and anything could have happened then. He had already seen how many times magical children were harmed in muggle orphanages, and foster homes. He didn't want the seeds of what had happened to Tom Riddle to happen with Harry Potter. He had managed to prevent the muggles from taking the boy away, but that hadn't stopped them trying to find out what was going on in that house in that boring neighbourhood. It was too risky using too much magic otherwise the boy would have questioned what was going on around him.

Dumbledore had spent a great deal of his time making sure the Dursleys didn't kill the boy, but it was hard, and it was even harder to constantly monitor the streets to make sure the boy wasn't suddenly the subject of concern again. He hadn't expected the Dursleys to be killed, though, and in such a brutal manner. Dumbledore could have stopped the investigation from discovering the abuse, but he hadn't bothered; many people had been stopped from asking to many questions, but the Dursley's deaths would mean the house would either be demolished, or someone brave would buy the place, and then they could discover something that the police had missed. But Dumbledore had only spared the dead muggles a fleeting thought. He was more concerned with the missing wizard, cursing all the while he hadn't bothered to plant tracking chairs on him, but there were only so many spells you could place on someone in a few minutes.

But Dumbledore knew the boy was still alive, that was the only good thing about the whole mess. The bad news was there was little he could do about it. He had tried to find the boy, tried to find out if he was alive, but he had little idea where the boy could have gone. When the boy had been young, his magic had been acting up even with the blocks he had placed on the boy's magic, but he had put them on to make it easier for the Dursley's to cope, and to also prevent the Death Eaters from tracking down the Potters. It was hard to hide with a magical child. Lily and James couldn't have gone to hospital, so he had placed the spells on the boy before the Potters had gone into hiding. All to satisfy a prophecy.

Thinking about the prophecy Sybil Trelawney had given at the Hog's Head so long ago made Dumbledore grimace. He wished he had something more concrete to believe in, certainly not something as cryptic as a prophecy which had dozens of meanings and potential outcomes. Dumbledore rubbed his eyes, unsure if he was thankful he didn't have them mind or the mental patience to think about divination.

Finding out from Hagrid that the boy had been slashed so badly on the face by his own cousin, and that he had lived on the streets for so long and that he was a metamorphmagus both amazed and horrified Dumbledore. He was amazed because he knew that while the ability was a Black family trait which was a legend, it hadn't been seen in decades, and it had only reappeared thanks to Andromeda marrying Ted Tonks, and their daughter Nymphadora possessed it.

He hadn't imagined Harry Potter to have it. He hadn't known, if he had then he would not have tried to suppress it in any way because he couldn't. Metamorphmaguses worked completely different from other magical abilities, and you couldn't suppress it without crippling the wizard, and because he needed the boy to be considered a nice enough target by Voldemort, he couldn't risk the boy being an easy target because the horcrux would still be needing an end.

But Dumbledore was horrified by Harry living on the streets for so long because there was no telling what the boy knew, and he had little doubt the boy had needed to some truly questionable things in order to survive. A surviving Boy Who Lived - Harry needed to be a martyr, not someone who would be able to fight back.

Hagrid had told him the boy had broken into a house just to get out of the cold, and while he didn't really care about that, the fact remained he would need to find a place for Harry to live.

He had asked Molly Weasley to find the boy, and escort him onto the platform at King's Cross, and hopefully steer the boy into a direction Dumbledore required of him - he didn't really care what Harry did in his personal time, but he wanted the boy to go down a specific direction, and he'd already made arrangements for the Sorting. It wasn't something he normally did, but this one was important.

* * *

Shoulder bag slung over his shoulder with his shrunken trunks inside, Harry Potter strode towards the magically hidden entrance to Platform 9 and 3 quarters, thankful he had gotten the information for how to get onto the platform from the wand crafter rather than just wander cluelessly around because Hagrid had been too simple and stupid not to tell him.

Thinking of Hagrid made him kick himself again for the hundredth time. He had become so used to using his metamorphic powers to change his physical appearance, but he had become too used to changing his hair style, or giving himself a new eye colour as easily as he might scratch his face to get rid of an itch.

Harry had become complacent. He had grown so used to using the same power that had given him the means to deal with the Dursleys and escape detection ever since, but he couldn't believe he had reached the point where he would perform a change without even thinking about onlookers. He would have to return to his old practice of keeping an eye out, hiding in a bathroom and morph from there. Still, he had an entire year to make sure the students didn't find out, and even if Dumbledore confronted him about it, he could say he'd discovered it by chance.

Arriving at the station before 11.00, giving him plenty of time, Harry had gotten himself a few of the newspapers and a bottle of water.

"Same thing every year, packed with muggles, of course," a woman's voice said quite loudly.

Harry stopped and glanced over his shoulder, cursing his decision to use his metamorphic skills to just hide his scars - ever since he'd discovered the reason for his fame and the mark it had left on his forehead, he had become even more determined to hide his famous feature - and not what he looked like.

A family of redheads, led by a woman with faded red hair that seemed to have more white and grey than red, followed by four boys and a small girl, all of them dressed in well worn but shabby clothes, pushing trolleys loaded with trunks on them, one of the boys who looked more sharp featured than the others pushed a trolley with a cage with an owl inside it. Were they wizards? Harry supposed they must have been, but three of the boys looked like they were attending Hogwarts already, so why would they need to be reminded where the platform was?

"Come on, Platform 9 and 3/4s this way," the woman said, ushering her troop along before stepping into line with a red headed boy who was tall and thin but looked like he was around Harry's own age. "Now, remember, Ron," the woman said quietly out of earshot of the rest of the clan, "you're to get close to Harry Potter."

Hearing his name had Harry pause and listen closely.

"But why mum?" The boy whined.

"Now Ron, I've told you a dozen times, Professor Dumbledore wants us to befriend the poor orphaned boy who has lost everything," the woman chided before her voice took on such a fake tone of sympathy that made Harry want to gag, it was so fake it would have made a professional classically trained actor gag and blush with shame.

But the mention of his name made him step out of sight, pull the hood over his head and he pretended to suffer a sudden sneezing fit to give him the chance to bend over and concentrate on his appearance. He had already decided to make sure his features were hidden when he changed, and he was sure he could practice his security at Hogwarts. He'd done it before with the streets and with the foster home, he could do it with a magic school.

When he stood upwards again, the black hair and green eyes were gone. In their place was a boy with dark blonde hair and brown eyes.

"But I don't care what Dumbledore wants, all I care about is making the Potters, especially that filthy mudblood bitch Lily pay for denying me the right to have a marriage contract between little Harry and Ginny, that way we can have their fortune," the woman went on, foolishly sprouting her plans for the world to hear and not giving a thought at all of potential eavesdroppers, "Wouldn't you want that, Ron, to finally have what you've always wanted? Expensive clothes, House elves, money?"

Harry walked off so he couldn't overhear the boy's reply, deciding he had heard enough. The old bitch and her son weren't that far from the platform entrance, and the family was more than old enough to go through by themselves, though he wondered if they knew what two of their family were doing before he decided he didn't care, but it surprised Harry two of them would talk so openly on the muggle side of King's Cross.

He shrugged his shoulders as he stepped through the portal and found himself staring at a red steam train. Still maintaining the disguise, Harry boarded the train and headed for a section where he could sit alongside his future peers. It was fairly empty, so he found it easy to take off his bag, and quickly take his trunk out and resized it before the carriage filled up.

Harry spent the journey to Hogwarts idly chatting with the other first year students to be, all the while avoiding the same red heads he'd seen at King's Cross though it wasn't difficult - he was unsure whether their mother had brought them in on the plan to steal his family fortune, but he wasn't going to give them much of a chance. The saying "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" sounded wise, but he wasn't sure how he could make it apply to this bunch. The young red head was in a panic. "Have any of you seen the Boy-Who-Lived yet?" he kept asking, and no matter how many times everyone said no, he never got the hint.

"We're going to be best friends," he kept saying.

One of the first years, a girl with round, pretty features and reddish blonde hair snorted, "Yeah, right, Weasley."

The red head boy wasn't the only one looking for Harry. A shortish pale boy with platinum blonde hair, pointed features and narrowed grey eyes followed by two massive, thuggish boys were looking for him as well. Unlike the red head, the blonde haired boy seemed more intelligent enough to realise it wasn't worthwhile coming back.

Harry used the time to ask others about the Boy-Who-Lived. He didn't outright talk about the subject, he just asked questions with as much subtlety as he could. Most of the others seemed to be excited about meeting him, whereas others didn't seem to care one way or another. The metamorphic ability he had was amazing and it gave him the opportunity to mingle without being seen or heard.

* * *

When Harry saw the state of the boats, he wondered if these things had been in use a thousand years ago. He chose one of the boats at the back so then he could hang back during the Sorting - he had no idea how the students were sorted, and it made him sneer when he heard the various guesses. While the troll idea was amusing, it was ludicrous. He also doubted they would go to all the trouble of getting muggleborns and asking them to show off their magical skills. How could they ask for that when it was doubtful many of the muggleborns, and indeed some of the other would be students from magical families had probably never cast a spell in their lives?

Harry was right at the back of the crowd, so he could change his appearance without anyone really noticing unless they looked back, and he closed his eyes and returned his appearance to normal, though he used the small pocket mirror he'd bought to see if he had cloaked his facial scar. He didn't care if the other first years he'd been around realised the person they'd travelled with was gone, hopefully in the excitement of coming here and settling down the memory would fade. He ignored the argument after the stern looking witch in red robes left the anteroom that had started between the blond boy and the young redhead he had seen and overheard conspiring with his mother to steal the Potter money. He planned to ignore and avoid all the red head's clan - he knew who they looked like, and besides from what he'd heard about the Houses at Hogwarts they weren't always close. He also planned to avoid the blond boy, who struck him more as a wannabe, somehow.

Harry ignored the ghosts as well, though it was amazing to see that they did exist, and he followed the other kids through to the Great Hall. Harry looked around, impressed by the splendour of the place. He saw through the gap over the shoulders and heads of the other first years a very old looking hat that he knew Petunia Dursley would never have allowed in her neat as a pin house on top of an old stool that looked like it was on its last legs. He chuckled internally at the joke.

The song the Hat came out with barely interested Harry - he wasn't interested in the houses getting along since he planned to spend as much time as possible in the background. One by one the students were called up and sorted into their houses. Knowing that he had time before the register reached the Ps, he looked around the hall and quickly found the redheaded family called the Weasleys. It was slightly unfair, he knew, to expect all of the family to be greedy enough to want to steal his family fortune, but Harry had met enough opportunists over the years to know he couldn't trust everyone.

When the list reached the Ps, and the stern witch called out, "Potter, Harry," he knew it was show time.

Harry stepped forwards, quietly saying "excuse me" so he could get past, but unfortunately everyone in his way was too surprised and awed to see him so close; Harry hoped that in time everyone would realise he wasn't special, and he didn't want to be. It took a few firm pushes to get everyone out of his way, and he sat down on the stool, readying himself to be sorted.

But the Hat was barely over his head when it shouted out, "GRYFFINDOR!"

What? Harry screamed mentally as he stood up and walked over to the table that was screaming and cheering so loud he wondered why the sound barrier hadn't popped, but what made him upset was the sight of the redheads at the table. As he sat down, he ignored the others and tried to think about what had happened. When he had been at Diagon Alley and had bought some of the books there, he had learnt about the Houses of Hogwarts in greater detail - Hagrid had told him that Slytherin was the house where Voldemort had been in during his time at the school, and Harry knew he was being manipulated, but when he'd looked into the histories of the houses and the criteria for each of them, he had known Gryffindor and Hufflepuff were out - he was brave and loyal, but he was loyal only to people he felt had earned it though truthfully that loyalty was more for himself, and he didn't blunder about recklessly.

Out of all the Houses, Harry had thought Slytherin was his best bet, and even if some of the Death Eaters had been members of that house, that made little difference to Harry.

He wasn't stupid, he knew that he wouldn't be popular in that house. Why would that be a problem? He didn't intend to make friends at this school. All he wanted was to be left alone. But why had the Hat sorted him into Gryffindor?

Harry shrugged, he'd find out the truth sooner or later, but he looked around the hall as the sorting continued. But he caught the eyes of two people at the staff table. One of them was an elderly man dressed in flamboyant robes. The old man was looking straight at him, eyes twinkling, and he had his goblet raised. Harry realised who this man was, Albus Dumbledore, the man who had dumped him at the Dursleys. The sight of the goblet raised in a toast and the twinkling eyes almost sent him into a rage. It was obvious what Dumbledore had done, it was because of him Harry was in Gryffindor rather than let the Hat takes its time.

Harry looked away from Dumbledore, though he sent the old man a look of disgust, but he found himself looking at an ugly bastard with a hooked nose and shoulder length greasy black hair wearing black robes. When their eyes met across the hall, Harry winced at the sudden pain in his scar from where the horcrux had once been - Harry would later ask himself if there were still remnants of the horcrux later, but he pushed through it, and glared back at the teacher. What are you staring at, you miserable fucker? Harry thought to himself, but he felt a chill when the greasy haired professor's glare grow worse, almost as if he had heard the insult.

* * *

Notes - So many people read about manipulative Dumbledore, but in this story he will be more of a backseater with big plans, but in this story I picture Dumbledore as an old wizard who has received fame but he has discovered its not what its cracked up to be.

A reviewer pointed out Harry should have been more subtle about his metamorphic powers, and he should have been, but you need to bear in mind when you're living on the streets when you are trying to survive, you might take things for granted. He wasn't thinking basically, but now he has learnt his lesson he will be more careful.

I've decided I'm not going to bother rewriting Harry's years giving a blow by blow account, but I plan to have a few chapters dedicated to each year up until the end of the fourth year. I have plans in mind for the aftermath.


	10. Chapter 10 Bad Impression

Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter, but I do own this story and the ideas behind it.

Feedback - always appreciated, thank you.

 **My thanks to Fyreheart, who gave special permission to use a chapter out of his wonderful What If one-shots, the one-shot in question is Chapter 3 - Silent Vigil, where Harry goes to McGonagall, and discovers to his disappointment she doesn't remember what Halloween did to him, and she had taught his parents for seven years.**

 **Author's note - I received some rather offensive Guest reviews concerning this story. Mostly how cliche this** story **is. Let me ask you something - How many original ideas for Harry Potter are there? Harry Potter has been on Fanfiction since the 90s and you can find different takes on various ideas every day. Time travel stories - go to the time travel communities, you're bound to find something there. Dark Harry - dozens, too many to count. Female Harry - again, too many to count.**

 **Virtually every idea has been done already. To the guest reviewer, whoever you are, if you have an original idea then write one for yourself, and then find out if it's cliche or not, otherwise don't waste my time.**

 **To my other reviewers, my apologies. But I get so frustrated with people who don't have anything better to do with their time.**

 **Anyway, on with the chapter.**

* * *

Bad Impression.

The classroom was perfect, and it gave the impression Hogwarts had either once taught more subjects than what was being taught today in this century or it taught subjects that had been lost in the mists of time, but Harry didn't care. It had taken him days to fully explore a large chunk of the castle. Hogwarts was vast. The stone corridors and passageways were a bit of a maze, so Harry had needed to use red spray paint to make markers so then he could find his way before becoming confident enough to find his own route.

It was clear these corridors and dusty old classrooms had barely been touched for decades. Desks were covered with layer upon layer of dust and spiderwebs, the sight of which made Harry smirk - let Ron Weasley come in here without freaking out. He had discovered the redheaded moron's fear very quickly, and he had capitalised on it a dozen times over. It might have been cruel since it had terrorised Weasley, but Harry felt justified since the little shit and his bitch of a mother were plotting to steal his family's money, and marry him off with that girl.

It had been a month since he'd arrived at Hogwarts and he was already thinking of escaping the morons in Gryffindor tower. Sleeping in a room with two boys who could recite the lyrical buzz of the chainsaw in the Texas Chainsaw massacre was bad enough, but having to put up with one boy (the redheaded twonk) and his attempts to become friends was becoming a chore.

Even now Harry was angry about how he'd been manipulated into being sorted as a Gryffindor. It hadn't taken him long to realise he didn't like any of the Gryffindors. It didn't help that they had forced him into playing that stupid game Quidditch, and if he had known he was that good at flying then he wouldn't have suddenly gone after Neville's Remembrall like that.

Harry shook his head as he remembered that flying lesson. Didn't the stupid wizards know anything about Health and safety? The brooms looked like they were a second away from being turned into kindling just by being sat on, never mind being flown. Harry had raised the issue, not really being afraid to with Madam Hooch; the woman had given him a long suffering look, and told him she had raised the concern a thousand times each year, but the Board of Governors refused to hand over the cash, even though they had it in abundance. The more Harry lived in the magical world, and he'd only been living in it for a few months, the more he realised how bent the people were.

Malfoy had jeered at him, calling him a coward because he was afraid of a broomstick, but Harry had ignored the blonde fucker though he had promised himself to kill the moron at some point if he went too far. Unfortunately Neville Longbottom had proved his fears right - he had zoomed around the place, completely out of control, the front of the broom smashing a few times into a wall, and then he'd crash-landed into the ground with a broken wrist. The remembrall he'd then had rolled right into Malfoy's hands.

The blonde had thrown it away, and Harry had gone after it. He wasn't trying to prove anything to himself, he knew how good he was, and besides, he had survived child killers, gang fights, even people chasing after him, if he could survive that then he could survive this stupid school. He had flown after the stupid glass ball, wondering how Neville's grandmother could be so stupid to send it to him when a notebook he could write little details down would've been better since then he could recall things easier than holding a glass ball that filled with red smoke whenever he'd forgotten something - how was he supposed to know what he'd forgotten? All the stupid thing did was just remind him he'd forgotten something, not what he'd forgotten for god's sake?

Truthfully, he didn't know why he'd gone after it.

Part of him liked to think it was to get back at Malfoy, to make the blonde twat look foolish, but another part was telling him it was because, unlike many of the other Gryffindors, Neville Longbottom wasn't as pretentious. Everyone else seemed determined to be his friend in some manner and it was getting annoying.

His new spot on the Quidditch team had soon become public knowledge because Oliver Wood wouldn't stop going on about it. Harry had quickly found the tower unbearable, and so he'd found the perfect place to get away. True, they were a few abandoned classrooms, but since this part of the school was practically abandoned, and Filch and his mangy cat probably didn't see the point in patrolling this part of the school Harry was safe to convert the place into his own little kingdom. The only things missing were a bed, something to provide warmth, and a bathroom (no way was he going to bother with the bathrooms in this part of the school, fuck only knew the state of them at the moment), but he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

Getting to the classrooms to clean them out wasn't really that difficult, finding time for them was since he had lessons and also had to cope with Weasley following him around like a puppy, trying to cosy up to him and become his friend.

Frankly, his efforts would be rejected even without the knowledge he and his family were planning to con him into marrying that red headed girl of their's and steal his family fortune, but he couldn't forget and forgive the way the kids in Surrey had treated him.

After flicking his wand for the final time, Harry admired the work he'd just finished. The classroom had been caked with so much muck and dust he had been leaving footsteps in it, but after a few wand flicks the rooms were practically ready. He vanished the old furniture which was falling apart, and tried looking for a replacement table, a couple of chairs, and a bed when he came to that little problem.

But there was one room, he was focusing on the most.

An art studio, converted out of an old classroom. He'd cleaned out most of the space, repairing only a few basics - he'd vanished the majority of old classroom furniture because it was useless, but in the art room he'd kept a few and spent time repairing and cleaning them. Now he had plans for Halloween.

A slow sigh escaped Harry's lips as he thought about the bloody day. The Dursleys had never let him forget that Halloween was the day he had ended up in their so called care, and each year they would take great delight in physically or psychologically tormenting him about how he'd lost his parents. But after his escape from Privet Drive, he hadn't really bothered to think much about the stupid festival anyway, but he'd always found ways to keep himself busy so then he could forget Lily and James Potter. Petunia might have told him the truth - not that she'd had much choice at the time - about how they had both died, but after he'd learnt how they had been hunted by Voldemort….. He came to see them both as weak, weak because instead of coming up with a better plan, they had both died.

But Harry was grateful to them since it meant he had grown stronger for it, but he couldn't get rid of the feeling they would have wanted him to be happy, not abused, not alone, not hounded for something he couldn't even remember when he was being mobbed by idiot wizards in the streets.

People at Hogwarts were talking about Halloween, giving no thought at all about what it meant for him, but he hoped to avoid it this year. He'd managed it for years, having had better things to do with his time. He had made a tradition a few years back, he would hide himself away with some food and drink, he'd started drinking cider or other alcohols after using a disguise to buy it without giving a fuck about those stupid laws about it not being suitable for kids, and he'd spend his time brooding on his own, watching a movie (if he could get inside a house), or he would spend his time smashing up the fronts of shops and using a baseball bat on cars to get rid of the pent up rage he had always felt towards his parents for being weak, for Voldemort for murdering them and leaving him alone, for Dumbledore who'd dropped him off at the Dursleys and didn't have a thought about coming back to check on his progress there, for the Dursleys for constantly reminding him that Halloween was the day he'd been orphaned.

Harry had also found a more peaceful way to get through the night. He would hole himself up somewhere, and graffiti walls. He had gotten into graffiti a couple of years ago, and he had become very good at it once he'd gotten the basics, but most of it was easy enough to learn. The only problem with spray paint was it was expensive to buy the paints, but thanks to the money he had now at Gringotts and a deal with the goblins who apparently hated muggle money so much they gave it out to him for free to stick into a bank account in the muggle world that wasn't an issue anymore, and getting it all at Hogwarts wasn't difficult. Bargain. The more muggleborns that came into the magical world, the more cash he'd get for free, and they'd been stockpiling it for years. Give it a whirl with accounts being opened in different cities under different names, and he'd have a fortune. Steal a few things, maybe even see other branches of business, and he may never need to steal again.

Harry knew that a feast had been laid on for Halloween, but he didn't want to be there. He wanted to continue his traditions, but while he was tempted to just go ahead and stay in the rooms he'd sorted out he didn't want to try his luck and attract unnecessary attention towards himself.

* * *

"Mr Potter, please come in," Professor McGonagall said as she escorted him into her office.

Harry did as he was told, his eyes scanning the neatly arranged office of the Transfiguration's professor, but he paid them no attention as he focused on his Head of House.

"Have a seat," the professor instructed, gesturing towards one of the empty chairs in front of her desk. "What can I do for you?"

Harry took a deep breath. "I am not going to attend the Halloween feast, Professor," he said solemnly as he looked at his Head of House, deciding to get to the point, though he had never been one for small talk.

"Why, are you ill, Mr Potter? You should know the Halloween feast is mandatory," McGonagall said.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "I am in perfect health, Professor," he replied, "but with all respect, I would like an exemption from the feast for tonight. Surely you know why it's important?"

The Transfiguration professor didn't hide the annoyance in her voice. "Mr Potter, you are not special to deserve concessions-"

"Don't call me special!" Harry interrupted, hissing with fury, unable to control himself as he began losing his temper.

McGonagall was furious. "Mr Potter-!" Unfortunately, that was the snapping point.

"Don't call me special! How dare you sit there and tell me that, without bothering to work out why I want to be exempted from sitting at the feast. Did it ever occur to you what this day means to me when people are celebrating it?!" Harry snapped, his voice rising with each syllable. He knew he was going too far, but this idiots foolishness was really pushing his limits.

McGonagall's anger faded into an expression of confusion. "What do you mean, what does this day mean to you?" she asked.

Harry closed his eyes. "Professor," he ground out, "stop using your mouth, start using your brain, and think about what you know about me, and about Halloween?"

He had to restrain the urge to add think to the question, but it was such a near thing; he was so sick and tired of everyone from the teachers and the staff thinking they knew everything about him, especially with all the lies about how he loved his fame (if he ever caught the prick who thought it was a good idea to write stupid books about his life and presenting them as 'facts,' then they would need to invest in a good tombstone, if witches and wizards were indeed buried) and be caught out when they didn't know anything about him at all.

Surprisingly, it took McGonagall a while to actually get an idea of what he was talking about, when she did, he had the sadistic satisfaction of seeing the woman pale and clap a hand to her mouth.

"Mr Potter," she said, her voice more quieter, more respectful after her recent blow up, "I'm sorry-"

Harry held up his hand, his expression hard, stony and cold. "I would like to spend the Halloween alone, and I don't want to be bothered then or ever," he said as if McGonagall hadn't spoken.

"Yes, yes of course," Minerva replied, but she was worried and scared. She was worried that the boy she had known as a bubbly, cheerful baby was so cold and so seemingly apathetic, but she was more scared that she had forgotten about the significance about Halloween for him. For the last decade, Minerva McGonagall and everybody else had celebrated Halloween, and it had never occurred to her how it would look to the boy, the last Potter, to see how the Wizarding world seemed to celebrate his parent's deaths even though truthfully they had forgotten the cost of the defeat of You-Know-Who.

"Right, I think we're done here," Harry said, clearly wanting to get out of the room, not that the old witch could blame him, "I hope you will ensure the other teachers know and don't interfere?" he added.

Minerva nodded sadly as she watched him leave the room, knowing that one or two of the staff would definitely try to interfere with the boy's wishes to be left alone. Albus would try to definitely get the boy to look beyond the deaths of his parents and move on, and would use the night as a means to get the boy to open up about what he had been doing for the last few years.

And Severus….. Minerva rubbed her eyes, wondering what was so special about Severus despite the fact he had been a supposedly repentant Death Eater who'd turned spy, not that it had done much good in the long run since Dumbledore had never seemed to act on any information Snape had provided to make any headway during those terrible last few years of the war since all Dumbledore had done was try to protect Snape.

Minerva had no idea if she could keep Severus from going after the boy to force him to attend the feast, out of some sick sadistic pleasure to make him suffer for all the bullying James Potter had inflicted on him when they'd attended Hogwarts together, but she doubted the boy would take it lying down. From what she'd heard from whispers and reports from various sources, the more reliable coming from the less biased teachers that said Potter was nothing like Lily and James, in fact he was quiet, introverted and preferred his own company despite the numerous attempts by students to get him to sit with them and 'hang out' but she had heard how violent the boy could be, as Draco Malfoy had found out.

She didn't know the details, but from what she had heard Potter had punched the Malfoy scion in the face hard enough to knock out one of the blond's teeth after Malfoy had said something to the boy to push him that far, and considering how Potter usually shrugged off insults and ignored Malfoy, who was already shaping up to be the bully of the first year students, it must've been substantial.

* * *

Harry left the office and took a deep breath, thankful that his metamorphic ability hadn't shown up; he'd learnt recently, thanks to small encounters with Malfoy that when he got mad slight changes to his default appearance just showed up, like a slight change of colour to his hair and eyes, but fortunately Malfoy was too obtuse to notice anything. The only reason Harry knew was because it happened in a boy's toilet, and Harry had been facing the mirror at the time, making it easy for him to get with it and restore the default appearance. That had been lucky, if it had been revealed…..

He had made the mistake of revealing his ability to Hagrid, who had probably blabbed it to Dumbledore since he had such a hard on for the old wizard, and he had no intention of revealing it to anybody else, never mind Malfoy or Snape.

Thinking of Malfoy made him shake his head in irritation - Snape was one thing, but at least he didn't have to deal with the greasy fuck all day. He just didn't understand what Malfoy was hoping to achieve by attempting to rile him up, one thing was for sure the boy had gotten what was coming when he'd punched the blond in her mouth.

He'd gotten into trouble over it with Snape, but Harry was seriously thinking of finding some way of killing the pair of them with something quick, painless, and untraceable.

When Halloween came, Harry just counted down the hours so he could get away from the other students. He had received a letter posted by McGonagall - once more the woman offered sincere apologies, but she mentioned she had gotten him an exemption for the Halloween feast and even instructions for how to get into the kitchens in case he got hungry. Harry was thankful for the information, since it gave him an edge in case anything went wrong in the next few years and he couldn't attend the feasts anymore, and put the letter away when Weasley began poking his nose in again. It was strange - he had punched Malfoy because the blond was annoying, yet Weasley was annoying, just as annoying as Granger was.

The rest of the day was the same old - he would trudge with the rest of the first years, past the other years, and then go into the classrooms, learn a few things and leave. But he couldn't deny he was learning magic after spending so much of his time putting up and struggling with a trial and error system that was only good in actual emergencies than actually making it happen deliberately and freely whenever he'd wished.

The only problem was the Ollivander wand - it might have 'chosen' him (he'd have to look up wand lore at some point to figure out if wands did choose the wizard as Ollivander said), but when Harry used it, he felt like the wand was being forced to help him cast the spells in the first place, and yet when he used magic for the custom wand he'd purchased the spells he used were more powerful, and more effective. He had the feeling that Ollivander had conned him into buying the wand in the first place, and he was thankful he was only using the fucking thing in his classes and not all the time and was using the custom wand to test them out. If magic was a river, then the custom wand was like a river flowing freely whereas using the Ollivander wand was the equivalent of his magic being blocked off by a dam, but he didn't have a clue why Ollivander would give him such a faulty wand in the first place.

"…..She's a nightmare," Ron Weasley's irritating voice broke through his thoughts as he walked amongst the first years away from their recent Charms lesson. "No wonder she doesn't have any friends!" he added, speaking to his idiot cronies, Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas, who laughed themselves sick like it was the best joke they'd ever heard in their short, miserable pointless lives. Harry was thankful Weasley had latched on to Thomas and Finnegan as friends, but while he found the redhead obnoxious and irritating he had to give the guy marks for effort.

Unfortunately the boy had been annoying him all day…..

But he didn't have time to think about that because he felt someone shoulder past him, Harry caught the glimpse of a head of long, bushy brown hair. Hermione Granger stormed past Harry, clutching her books close to her chest, and he was sure he caught the sight of tears making their way down the girl's cheeks.

Harry paused for a second, hardly surprised Weasley was causing other people problems - he had already begun mocking Longbottom for things Harry couldn't be bothered finding out, though he had the feeling it had something to do with the rotund boy's inability to fly. Harry thought it a bit rich that Weasley could deride other student's inabilities when he wasn't a straight A student himself.

But he was surprised by the feeling he had suddenly - he felt sorry for Granger, a girl he had never really spoken to aside to tell her to fuck off whenever she nagged him and the other first years, and even a few older students, into studying hard like she did, but he knew his sympathy had little to do with her feelings and more to do with his own burning annoyance towards Weasley.

Harry followed Granger to the girl's bathrooms - oh how pathetic, he thought to himself with a mental sneer at the other first year's immaturity - he was too far behind for the girl to notice him following her, and he walked in, ignoring the girl who was coming out who squeaked in shock when she saw him, but he was more interested in Granger.

He didn't know why he was doing this. He'd never really had much time for Granger. He found her attitudes to life and her black and white view of the world annoying and more than a little worrying because the magical world had thrown her clean out of her comfort zone, but he guessed he was trying to be nice as opposed to who he really was.

The bushy haired muggleborn wasn't hard to find in the bathroom - she was sniffling behind the closed door of one of the cubicles, but as Harry approached the cubicle, he paused as he wondered what he was going to say; he had never been good with offering comfort, but then again no one had ever offered him comfort even during that time at the foster home in Brighton.

"Are you alright?" he asked, deciding to get it over and done with.

"Potter? What are you doing in the girl's bathroom? You shouldn't be in here!"

Harry's jaw clenched in annoyance. She was going on about rules when she was upset? Typical. "I'm only here to see if you're alright," he ground out, "I don't know what set Weasley off this time, but he does that; lashes out at everyone around him whenever their backs are turned or to their faces, and always because they are either better than him or just an easy target. What did you do?"

Granger's voice was still shaky, sounding like she was a moment away from crying like a three year old who hadn't received the Christmas present she'd wanted. "I tried to help him in charms," she explained, "I corrected the pronunciation of the spell he was using, tried to stop him from poking someone's eye out when he was waving his wand around…."

"And when you demonstrated it, he flew into a fit of jealousy?" Harry sighed, remembering Professor Flitwick praising her for getting the levitation spell right. "Yeah, I've seen it."

He had. He had managed to transfigure a mouse into a ball only a week ago, and Weasley had pushed his face close to Harry's like he thought it would intimidate the black haired boy, said that the Boy Who Lived didn't need to show everyone else up, but Harry had ignored him even if it was tempting to simply break his neck. But he hadn't because the redhead was too insignificant at the time for him to bother.

"And that's when he spewed out to his brainless cronies you were a nightmare and you didn't have any friends?" Harry went on.

"You heard that?"

Harry snorted. "Bit hard not to when Weasley has a voice you can hear from Aberdeen," he replied. "So, you came here to cry?" He couldn't help but sneer at the last word of the question. He had long since abandoned the need to cry because he had nothing in the world to cry for.

"I thought you were here to make me feel better."

"I can tell you one thing, holing yourself in here, crying, will just make things worse," Harry said, though he wondered if he was making the right decision saying what he was going to say. "Granger, this school…..it's the equivalent of Secondary school, basically. Do you honestly think others are going to take a girl crying? No. They're not, they're gonna bully you if they hear you crying, holed up inside a bathroom cubicle, and you're not exactly popular in the school as it is."

Not giving Granger the chance to argue back, he went on. "Do you really think your popular with all your nagging? I can tell you, you're not. Why is it you just nag people to study up and do brilliantly in class, and yet whenever someone gets a higher mark than you do, you throw a temper tantrum and storm off to the library? You're like a little girl who doesn't get what she wants with that attitude, the only thing missing is you stomping your foot," Harry said, his mind conjuring memories of Dudley yelling at his parents and doing exactly the same thing Granger was more or less doing before he shook his head; while it had been fun seeing Dudley Dursley angry with his parents because they hadn't done what he'd wanted, this wasn't the time to think about them.

Unfortunately, his silence had given Granger the time needed to regain her confidence. "How DARE YOU-!" she began, but he was quick.

"Shut your mouth!" Harry snapped forcefully. "I'm right and you know it. Why do you do it, Granger, why is it you keep nagging people to study and yet you throw yourself into a rage just because someone does better than you? It's stupid!"

There was no reply from the other side of the cubicle; clearly its current occupant was stunned by how forceful he'd been.

Harry relaxed a bit and carried on, "Listen to me. What is it to you if they don't do well in their exams? What is it to you if they leave Hogwarts with terrible marks? Why should you care if they can't get good jobs because they have terrible grades because they didn't care about their futures? It's THEIR PROBLEM, not yours. You're not our mum," he said, adding himself to show Granger he was with everybody else who'd been annoyed by her, "and we don't you to be."

"I-I was only trying to help," Granger tried to say.

"If that were true, then you would have just told people to study up," Harry pointed out brutally. "But whenever someone got a good mark, you'd throw a fit. Take last week when Sprout awarded Neville Longbottom 5 points for getting the planting of that thing right," he said, not even pretending to care about what they'd been doing. Gardening had never been one of his favourite times at the Dursleys, why should herbology be any different? "What did you do? You threw a fit because Neville Longbottom, a guy who doesn't really do well in any class, did brilliantly in herbology class and gained points for it, and instead of being pleased for him because he's clearly gifted in that stupid class, you accuse him of cheating before you run up to the library! Why can't you let other people answer questions for a change, hand in good homework for subjects that are out of your comfort zone, and just grow the fuck up?"

Harry didn't know if Granger was about to say something back as a retort, not with the door in the way, but he didn't give her a chance to respond.

"Look Granger, you're clearly smart. Let the others like Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown botch up their lives; let's face it, Ron Weasley's never going to amount to anything even if his mother forced Dumbledore into allowing him back into the school. Weasley is too obsessed with chess and his own stomach to care about lessons, and even when someone does better than him, which happens every day, he is too jealous to get it into his thick skull he could do better if he applies himself; you and I could do that easily, so could anybody with some common sense, but not Weasley, and he grew up aware of the magical world. In the future, perhaps he might look back on his life and wished he'd done things different, but I doubt he has the brain power to look beyond his own faults."

Harry sighed and leaned against the cubicle. He had said too much, he was out of breath after talking to someone he didn't even like, but he was just so tired of Granger's one track view of the world.

"Why do you hate him so much?" Granger's question was quiet and judging by the thoughtful tone in her voice, she was clearly curious about what had made Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, possibly the most famous person in the school barring Albus Dumbledore, hate someone like Ron Weasley.

Harry was a little surprised by the question, but he supposed he should have expected it since he had focused on Weasley's bad points more than anybody else in the school. "That, Granger, is my concern alone; it has nothing to do with you," Harry replied in a harsh tone he hoped just told the girl to stay clear of it before he decided to leave. "Think about what I've said, and just focus on yourself because let me tell you, no-body else will; you are on your own. The teachers are not going to come and comfort you 'cause mummy and daddy aren't here for you," he went on, knowing it was slightly immature to call Granger's parents that, but he wanted the girl to see she had to be a grown up herself rather than a big kid whose body was the only thing growing older. "I speak from experience - no one cares about comforting kids, not even McGonagall. See you around, Granger."

Harry walked out of the girl's bathroom, ignoring the sound of Granger calling for him to come back.

* * *

"Does master wants something else to eat?"

Harry chuckled through the mouthful of succulent roast chicken he was currently trying to get through at the moment. "No, thanks," he replied once the majority of the meat had been swallowed. "I'm fine for now, but I'll let you know."

The house elf grinned, not at all abashed by the refusal and went back to work. Taking a generous sip of butter beer - he might prefer cider and stronger spirits, but the house elves were clearly under orders he couldn't counter to not give the students' alcohol stronger than ordinary beer or even rum - he couldn't help but smile at the house elves who were working themselves off, but they weren't unhappy. Instead, they were pleased and happy to be working.

Harry had to do some research into the lives of house elves, but he didn't think it was anything for him to worry about unless they were being mistreated - he didn't know why he cared so much, but there was something about the house elves that tugged at his heart strings. It could have been the fact they reminded him of himself - tiny, expected to cook for others when they were probably more than capable of getting up off their arses to put in some effort, though he doubted Draco Malfoy's mother was even prepared to do that type of work - but unlike himself, the house elves here didn't seem abused, they weren't cowering away in fear of being beaten up because they were trying to compensate for their height and their inability to see what they were doing, but he had the feeling it was much different in other places where houses elves worked.

Harry shrugged his shoulders. He would think about that later, though truthfully he didn't see why it should matter to him; he wasn't here to hold hands of other people and shield them away from a world that was rotten on the inside.

His mind turned to Granger. He didn't know for sure if the bushy haired muggleborn girl had left the girl's bathroom by now, but what she had said still continued to nag him (it frustrated him that even when she hadn't meant it to nag him, her question did just that) about why he hated Ron Weasley.

Truthfully Harry preferred Weasley to remain out of sight, out of mind more than anything else, but this morning… His mind went back to breakfast.

* * *

Harry was eating alone as was his custom, and he was close to the doors of the great hall in case of trouble when the unwelcome presence of Ron Weasley announced itself.

"Hey Harry!" The loud voice of the obnoxious redhead boomed, shocking Harry so much he almost dropped his spoon, and he had to endure the sight of Ron Weasley sitting down on the bench opposite him. The boy pulled a number of platters containing eggs, bacon, sausages, hash browns and piled amounts that only Dudley could have managed to eat in one go.

Harry didn't bother answering, he just went back to eating his breakfast. Unfortunately Weasley wouldn't shut up, so Harry tuned him out. But the thick moron had to say something else. "Hey, Harry, you're a bit glum today. What's up? This is the day you beat You Know Who. Cheer up!"

Harry glared at the moron, and out of the corner of his eye, he could already see some of the most forward thinking and sensitive members of the House glare at the idiot.

"It's also the day my parents were murdered, you fucking moron!" Harry hissed, wishing he could call the bastard something stronger than a moron, but he didn't want to make any of the Weasleys suspicious of him when he hadn't even spoken to the twins or Perfect Prefect Percy if he accidentally revealed to them, he'd overheard the plans to steal what little he had left; a fortune may not sound like much, but while he might not have any family that he knew of, he wasn't going to let anybody take what he had left, especially people as greedy as this fuckers' family.

Harry stood up, picking up his bowl and his bag and he walked away and looked somewhere else to sit and eat. After he found himself a decent seat, he ate furiously wondering what he could do to make Weasley, all of them, pay the price.

As he sat down, he wondered what it would take for the moron to realise bringing up someone's dead parents and they should celebrate it on the day of their deaths was a bad idea, but he doubted it. Weasley lacked the intelligence for such thinking.

* * *

Harry shook his head and resumed eating of his meal, putting Weasley out of his mind as he ate. He might consider his parents as weak for not doing what he himself would've done in their place, but he didn't know their situation well enough to judge them, but they were his parents. Glancing up at the ceiling, knowing that everyone (including Granger if she'd swallowed her immaturity) was at the feast for a second before he looked down again. He wondered if he really wanted to go to the small den he'd made out of those classrooms in that abandoned part of the castle, or if he should just stay down here until it was fairly late. When McGonagall had given him the route and instructions for how to get into the kitchens, he hadn't expected to stay in the kitchens, but there was something about the house elves that were genuine. Indeed, apart from a few he'd met so far, the house elves were genuine - they didn't corner him, asking him to show his scar, didn't call him the Boy Who Lived or whatever, and they didn't seem interested in what he'd done tonight eleven years before.

Instead, they went around the kitchen, cooking and laughing to themselves, chatting in their voices with their limited understanding of English and asked him if he wanted anything else to eat, but otherwise they seemed happy to just leave him to it. After he was finished, he reached out for the pudding he'd asked for, and he ate the apple pie with warm custard and let out a slight moan of approval before taking a swig of butter beer. He was beginning to think he should be coming down here more often.

Harry was about to leave the kitchen to head upstairs, though what he would do after he left the kitchens he didn't know just yet when he heard the elves cry out in alarm.

"What is it?" he asked them frantically as they ran about the kitchens, putting away their tools, plates while shoving platters of food into massive cupboards that reminded Harry of the inside of a fridge.

"Troll, Master! There be a troll in the school!" One of the elves said not even trying to hide the fear all of the house elves were feeling, the voice high pitched enough to tell Harry it was a female elf.

Harry grabbed one of the elves. "Calm down, and tell me about trolls; I've only been in the magical world a short time, so why are you panicking?"

"Trolls be very dangerous, master," the elf replied, following his order to calm down. "They also be very stupid, they should not be's in the castle."

"What can they do?" Harry asked.

"They be smashing the school up, master," the elf answered, looking impatiently around clearly wanting to resume getting the kitchen sorted, "they be killing the students."

So much for Hogwarts being the so called safest place in Britain, Harry thought darkly to himself as he remembered what Hagrid had told him when they'd gone to Gringotts together the day after the massive Keeper of Keys had visited him in the muggle world. "Is there anything I can do to help; with the troll in the school, I doubt it would be safe for me, and I like keeping myself occupied-"

"No master," another elf interrupted firmly, "you stays and sits at the table you sat at, and let us do the work."

"Yes, we's keep busy," a second elf added while in the middle of clicking her fingers (her voice gave her away) and instantly turning down the fires. "Yous the wizard, we be house elves, you no need to do anything."

Harry didn't like the sound of that reply though he knew it was not his business to get in the way; if there was one thing he hated, it was other people forcing others to do the work when they were more than capable of doing it themselves, but there were times when even he knew it was necessary. But Harry was bothered by the way the house elves seemed to think that they didn't matter in the grand scheme of things compared to them.

Sighing in frustration, he sat down at the table again and watched as the house elves meticulously sorted the kitchens out. The Hogwarts kitchens were vast. Harry had been to many places in his life, and the only thing he could think of that even remotely matched the size of the kitchens was the entrance and reception area of the Science museum in London.

Seeing the four long tables in watching the house elves deposit food onto them before they disappeared gave Harry a clue about the way the school fed everyone in the different houses while bringing down platters and bowls back down again when the students were finished with them. Harry had looked over the preparation areas with a professional eye, and knew that while she wouldn't have liked the presence of the house elves and deemed them freaks like she had deemed him and his mother, Petunia Dursley would have grudgingly admitted the house elves knew what they were doing.

The house elves quickly cleaned the kitchens ready for when they would use it, and Harry was curious about whether they slept or not because they must have been slaving all day to make all of this food when he noticed a small group of house elves chatting to each other, the general air of relief spreading through the labyrinth kitchens, and the elves began smiling happily again.

"What is it?" Harry asked curiously.

"The troll be gone, master," one of the elves relied.

"Is it dead?"

"Yes, master," the elf's large ears lowered slightly as though saddened by the loss, though the look of relief was still present, "trolls be too dangerous to keeps or tames, so they has to be killed, especially in a school."

Harry nodded in understanding. "Is it safe for me to leave?" he asked.

"Oh yes, it be safe master," another elf replied; Harry wished they wouldn't keep calling him master, but he would worry about that later.

"Thanks for dinner and pudding," Harry said as he prepared to leave, but he wasn't expecting the reaction he got.

"Master…..thanks us!" One of the elves cried.

"Master is so kind!"

Harry left the kitchens, his ears ringing with the praise of the house elves.

* * *

Author's note - Hermione isn't really going to have much of a role. She's going to be the naggy type of character, if I can be bothered to add her, but she will think of Harry Potter once or twice. Who knows, she might actually take up some of his advice though she probably will be naggy?


	11. Chapter 11 Thoughts on Harry Potter

Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter. Just this.

Thoughts on Harry Potter.

There were times Albus Dumbledore truly wondered and asked himself how it was Tom Riddle believed he was the heir of Slytherin when he didn't really seem to have many of the founder's traits like cunning since so many of his plans were so crude and relied more on brutality than any kind of true subtlety. While many people would believe, if they knew Professor Quirrell hosted Voldemort in his plot to steal the Philsophers' stone, that using the troll to distract everyone was the act of a Slytherin, it wasn't. A true Slytherin would have been quieter than using a troll and besides, since it was impossible to control a mountain troll there was no guarantee Voldemort would've been able to find out about the protections on the stone quickly enough to find out how to get to it. There were so many ways the plan to get to the stone that way would've gone wrong, but that Voldemort for you - he might be powerful, but he was so limited.

Albus knew that, if he had wanted to, Severus would have spent a lot of his time researching what the protections around the stone were because he knew that each teacher whom he had fought tooth and nail to get to help to protect it in the first place, and Severus would never have gotten caught and he definitely would never have brought a troll in at all. If Voldemort needed to bring trolls of all things into a school to provide a distraction when any true Slytherin descendent would have come up with something more subtle and quiet, then Albus truly felt it would be a godsend for the Slytherin bloodline to come to an end. He couldn't help but believe that Salazar Slytherin was rolling in his grave at what his family had become.

Albus Dumbledore rubbed his eyes as he surveyed the dawn. It was truly beautiful, especially if you were in either the headmaster's office or in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw tower, and had time to admire it. The sun rising through the mist of the chilly weather in Scotland, seeing the sun shine over the lake and made it appear to be a flat fire of colours. Considering that he had been extremely busy trying to mitigate the disaster into the supposedly safe Hogwarts, he felt he deserved a chance to see something like this, and curse Tom Riddle for being a continual imbecile.

If Riddle had done what he suspected he'd done, then he had lost a good portion of his intellect, though truthfully Albus had never really thought much of Tom's intelligence. Setting Slytherin's monster on the school until it killed someone like it was a well trained killing machine, and then framing Hagrid were the signs of a psychopath, not a Slytherin.

The idiot boy had thought he was oh so clever when he had done that, but Dumbledore wasn't stupid - he had known Slytherins his entire life, and he knew a great deal about the traits of the various houses at Hogwarts, if Tom Riddle thought he was a true Slytherin then he clearly had something wrong with him.

It was so typical of Voldemort to use brute force and ignorance to find information instead of taking his time, being patient and learning much more than there appeared to be. And it was something that some Slytherins had come to feel was acceptable, though one of two of them showed a little promise on occasion. Lucius Malfoy had moments where he was subtle and openly dangerous, for instance.

Thinking of Lucius made him sneer.

Although he didn't like the thought of killing anyone living, there were times he could well do without the Malfoy family.

Dumbledore had spent most of the night calling in favours to keep him in Hogwarts since the troll attack was just a random act, though he knew he would need to field a few people who were more with it and didn't take his word as gospel. But while he was glad to keep his job as headmaster, he had been disappointed because he had genuinely thought the troll would have been an opportune moment for Harry Potter to shine, but if he was honest with himself, he didn't and couldn't blame the boy for wanting to get out of having to watch his peers celebrate Halloween, the day of his parent's deaths. The only thing that worried him was the lack of friends the boy had, which was why he was waiting for the chance to speak to Miss Granger and Mr Weasley about that matter, though whether it would do any good he didn't know because of the personality issues both of them had; Ronald suffered from insecurity because of his more successful siblings, and Hermione just didn't like people doing better than her, and nagged people to death in the interim.

Albus personally didn't give much thought to the girl. Why should he? Ever since he had become a teacher, long before he had become deputy Headteacher at Hogwarts, Albus had come across so many muggleborns who believed they knew everything about the wizarding world before something happened to make them bow their heads and realise they didn't.

Hermione Granger was no different. She was another example of a muggleborn who believed she knew everything, but didn't. Still later on he would have a better idea of what made her tick, and then he would have an equally good idea of how to use that to his advantage.

Still, it would be simple for him to get the two to work together. One of the things he liked about Molly Weasley, though he found the woman more than a little irritating with her shrill voice was that she made sure most of her children worshipped him, so getting Ronald to do what he wanted shouldn't be that hard, and Granger followed authority figures thoughtlessly without giving a thought to the notion they might not have their best interests at heart.

Dumbledore had no idea if the pair of them would succeed in getting Harry to open up, but even if they didn't, it wasn't completely bad since they could inform him about whatever the boy was doing.

But even if the pair of them didn't really make any progress getting any information about Harry Potter and his actions, they would still tell him enough to shape his plans, it was essential the boy encountered Lord Voldemort this year so then he could then be guided down the path of martyr and fulfil the prophecy at last. The fact he was manipulating the prophecy was irrelevant to him.

* * *

Draco Malfoy sneered at Potter in Charms class, though the black haired filthy, useless half blood didn't seem to care. Draco was still smarting about the punch Potter had thrown. While Madame Pomfrey had managed to fix the injury, all it did was prove to Draco that he was clearly the more superior wizard. Potter hadn't even drawn his wand, he'd just resorted to using his fists like a filthy muggle. It never occurred to him that Potter had been holding back his spell repertoire, but then again, he could hardly claim he had a major knowledge of spells either; his parents might have allowed him access to spell books, but Draco hadn't had access to a wand since no magical parent in their right mind would give their wands to a toddler or a small child, so he hadn't been able to practice.

It had been two days since the troll had gotten into the school, and he had sort of expected Potter to show everyone what an arrogant show-off he was, but he had hidden away somewhere, not like the other Gryffindors who'd probably have run towards it without their clothes on.

Draco hated Potter. He was everything he and his parents hated about what was happening to their once proud magical world, and it was clear he was following in his filthy mudblood mother's muggle heritage by punching him. But what he hated the most was the lack of response from the black haired wizard when ever he tried to taunt him, and he also hated it whenever the boy did brilliantly with a spell, though fortunately that was rare.

He was so busy sneering and glaring at the black haired wizard when Professor Flitwick (it was clear to Draco he wasn't completely human, unless he had been hit with a permanent shrinking spell) came over to him.

"Mr Malfoy, do you mind showing the charm we are doing today, as it seems you have mastered it apparently without my knowledge?" the diminutive professor requested.

Draco knew he was in trouble, but he tried to perform the charm anyway, but it didn't work.

"I see you have not been listening to a word I have been saying today, Mr Malfoy," Flitwick went on, not even masking his disappointment. "I don't know what you've been thinking for the last half an hour, Mr Malfoy, nor do I care, but I am willing to let this pass this time, though if it happens again, you shall receive a weeks worth of detentions, and don't think Professor Snape can get you out of them. Now, pay attention to what I'm saying, or else I will give you a test each lesson to see what you have learnt. Five points from Slytherin."

When the little freak of a professor had left him, a chagrined and embarrassed Draco glared at Potter, but saw that the boy hadn't even seemed to have noticed the little confrontation with Flitwick.

That made him angrier. The pair of them were enemies, if the roles were reversed then Draco would have sneered smugly at Potter for getting into trouble. The fact Harry Potter had moved past such childish antics didn't occur to him.

* * *

Harry Potter was proving to be a problem to keep up with, Hermione Granger thought to herself one night as she and Ronald Weasley tried to come up with a new way of getting close to the black haired wizard, who was proving to be incredibly mysterious.

After Potter had confronted her in the girl's bathroom, Hermione had thought about what he'd said about not nagging people, and acting like a diva when they did better than her, but since Hermione found it hard to change she didn't bother. She was still telling people to study and whenever they did better than her, she would lose her temper with them.

But she had wanted to speak to Potter. He was so mysterious, and the fact he had gone after her to the girl's bathroom to tell her to stop pushing people away had intrigued her, and she just wanted to know more about him. When she'd been sitting with her fellow Gryffindors at the Halloween feast, she had hoped to speak to him and learn more about him, but he hadn't been there. When she saw him again in the common room, she had gone over to him and demanded he tell her where he'd been during the feast as it said in the school rules all students should attend the feasts. Harry had looked at her coldly, and then said clearly he wished he hadn't bothered to make her turn over a new leaf, he wondered why he'd bothered when it was clear she wasn't going to change.

The next day after the troll had been dealt with by Professor Dumbledore, the same Professor Dumbledore had summoned her and Ronald to his office, and he had told them he wanted them to try to become friends with Harry, and even if that didn't work out they should keep him informed of whatever Harry was doing. Professor Dumbledore had also told them both that Harry Potter had a very important future for the magical world, and that he was the only one who could help in that regard, but he could only be there for the boy if the boy opened up to him, but he would need to know about what the boy was going through.

When it was put like that, Hermione could understand the logic of Professor Dumbledore's argument, and she was overwhelmed and delighted by the offer he gave her of old knowledge, books on magic, that were no longer really taught at any magical school. But she wasn't really impressed by what Ronald was offered, she like everyone else knew just by looking at them, that the Weasleys weren't really rich, so she imagined it made sense that money was the only thing Ronald could receive, but Hermione was just disturbed by the boy's lack of interest in anything other than money and his own stomach.

Unfortunately, their efforts to get Harry to join them at mealtimes or during breaks in the common room didn't seem to work, and truthfully even Hermione could see she was to blame for questioning Harry too much, but she found him a bit childish for not moving on. But then it never occurred to Hermione that maybe Harry had figured out what they were doing, but then while Hermione claimed to be empathic and understanding she genuinely wasn't.

It stemmed from her childhood. When she was younger, she was encouraged by her parents to learn about literature and mathematics, and it had fuelled her brain, but it had also made her very inflexible. When Hermione had first started to attend school, she had gone to school and had quickly won the respect of her teachers, and whenever she had been bullied by the other students who were jealous of her being able to pass effortlessly through the lessons whereas they lagged behind. Hermione had tried to 'help' but it didn't occur to her that her idea of help which was to nag them to death until they lashed out at her. Hermione had deemed them ungrateful.

But while she was good at logic, Hermione was very bad at deducting why so many weird things happened around her, and some of those incidents had bled out into her school life, but luckily they were few and far between so she wasn't bullied. Her parents were worried enough as it was, but the doctors they took her too didn't find anything wrong with her. Finally, not long before her 11th birthday, Hermione's world had been turned inside out by a visit by Professor McGonagall, who came to her and told her and her parents she was a witch.

It took a while for her to realise the truth, but when she did Hermione was delighted with the news while her parents were wary about magic and her having it. It had taken Hermione a while to convince them that logically she should learn about magic, and since teachers were never wrong, then Professor McGonagall was right about Hogwarts being the best school there was. It wasn't until her parents saw Diagon Alley for the first time that they supported her going to Hogwarts.

Hermione had bought dozens of books, and she had become enthralled by the exploits of great wizards against evil wizards for things like Muggle rights. But the more she found out about the magical world, the more she believed they were backwards.

They used owls, of all things, to deliver letters to each other long distance instead of phones or anything more complex like you'd expect in a fantasy novel, they used quills for writing for heaven's sake, when pens were more efficient and biros didn't leak as badly as fountain pens, parchment for writing paper was still being used.

And they also used gold coins for their currency, which was archaic to say the least. You'd expect to find something like that in Victorian London or something like that, not here and now. But the point was, Hermione had already come to suspect she came from the more advanced world. But she was wrong - she had made theories without considering different facts - for instance, parchment was used because it was more resistant to the fumes made by potions. She had discovered that in the first few weeks since she had refused to bring any sheets of parchment with her to the potions classroom, and had resulted in a loss of points from Professor Snape. But many things infuriated her. It hadn't taken her long to discover the concept of blood purity, something that truly disgusted her, and everyone was so lazy; she had seen Lavender and Parvati use their wands to clean their teeth and get them spotless whereas she, being the good little daughter of a dentist, had to rely on a toothbrush.

Hermione ignored Weasley and his prattle (she had become quickly bored by the redhead's boasts about what he was going to buy with the money Dumbledore was going to give him), and thought about what she had been offered. While she was grateful for Potter coming to the bathroom, she felt that Professor Dumbledore had made her the offer of a lifetime, and with his help she could help usher in a new age for the magical world.

If she had to pretend to be Potter's friend, then so what?

* * *

Neville Longbottom was confused. He had thought Ron Weasley hated Hermione Granger, so why were the two sitting next to each other? It was only when he was close to them both and eavesdropped on their conversation out of curiosity that he realised what they were both talking about, both of them didn't really notice him since there were quite a few people in the common room and as long as he was quiet and didn't bring too much attention to himself then he wouldn't be seen, so long as he didn't knock anything over or bump into their table.

They were talking about spying on Harry Potter for the Headmaster, but both of them had different reasons for doing so - Ron was boasting about getting money for the job, though what Hermione was getting she didn't say; she was too intelligent to boast unlike Ron, who would boast about beating Herpo the Foul if it meant he could get a few galleons.

Discreetly Neville left the two to their little discussion and headed away from the two obnoxious Gryffindors, and headed away, hoping to find Harry to let him know what Granger and Weasley were planning, though truthfully he wasn't sure if his news would surprise the green eyed wizard that much given how he usually avoided Weasley anyway. Then again, not many people liked the redhead or Granger - Weasley was loud, messy, disgusting to look at when he was eating, and Granger was just bossy and annoying.

Neville didn't really understand Harry Potter, nobody did - Weasley tried boasting that he and Harry were best friends, but the green eyed wizard went to a lot of trouble to say that wasn't true, much to Weasley's confusion and annoyance - but Neville didn't believe that Dumbledore had the right to spy on anyone under his care. While he, like many other light sided children were raised to believe Dumbledore was a great wizard, Neville had spent his childhood listening to his grandmother talk about how Dumbledore's actions had led to the torture of his parents, though Neville didn't understand how that could be true.

He knew his parents had been principle fighters during the war, but truthfully Neville didn't like thinking or talking about the war anymore than he liked the way his grandmother took him to their ward in St. Mungo's and told him he should be more like his father. It didn't help with his self confidence, which was already taking a battering because he wasn't doing well in his studies.

But Neville was far from stupid. He could see the similarities as well as differences between himself and Harry Potter. Both of them, along with others like Susan Bones, had lost their parents to You-Know-Who, so they were orphaned, the last of their families…. But there were differences - while he and Susan had been raised in the magical world, but where Harry had been raised they didn't know. All they knew was that Harry Potter was closed off, he kept to the sidelines and stayed as far from others as possible. He had even punched Draco Malfoy and he was already proving to be quite violent.

Who was Harry Potter?

Anyway, he would go and try to find the other wizard and try to warn him about Granger and Weasley, and he left the common room to try to find him, though he kept as close to the portrait entrance to Gryffindor tower - he hated not having a good enough memory, but that was what happened when you were mentally shut down every single time you opened your mouth - and he was forced to wait but not for long. It was a relief to see him come up the steps towards the tower entrance.

"Harry!" Neville called before the black haired wizard could open his mouth to say the password to the waiting Fat Lady.

Harry Potter turned to face him at once. "What's wrong?" he asked, his voice neutral.

"I thought you ought to know, Granger and Weasley are being paid to spy on you," Neville reported.

If he was expecting Harry to be surprised or even horrified, Neville was disappointed. Instead, he sighed. "I wondered why Granger was suddenly hanging around that moronic bastard," he commented to himself, but he suddenly turned his attention to Neville. "You're not a part of it, right?" he asked carefully.

"What? No," Neville shook his head desperately, affronted by the other wizard's clear distrust. What in Merlin's name had made this famous wizard so distrusting?

But he was surprised when Harry gave him a small smile. "Okay, good." Harry led Neville away from the common room entrance so then they could chat without the Fat Lady overhearing.

"I'd wondered why Granger was suddenly hanging out Weasley after that thing with charms. I went after her to the girl's bathroom, now I wish I hadn't bothered. I told her she needed to stop harassing everyone like she did with you when you got good marks in herbology. But it looks like she didn't listen and now it looks like the headmaster has bribed her or something."

Neville shuddered, remembering only too well how Hermione Granger had completely lost it with him. "But why do you think the headmaster wants to spy on you?"

Harry shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, but thanks for telling me."

* * *

Once he'd shut the curtains of his bed and cast a few spells he'd found from one of the spell books in the library, Harry went over what Neville Longbottom had told him. He tried not to be surprised by anything he saw, he had seen a lot since he had discovered his magical powers, but when he had seen Hermione Granger sitting with Weasley, he had been surprised. At the time he had just thought the stupid brainless bimbo had forgiven the redheaded waste of space, but when she had tried to emulate Weasley's tactics in getting him to sit with them and be 'friends' that had put a totally different spin on the whole thing.

One of the most annoying things about Granger was she did not listen to anything anyone said to her; he had told her as a representative of the entire house to stop her nagging, controlling, bossy attitude, but she hadn't paid attention to anything he had said.

Harry had realised he had made a mistake trying to be empathic and kind to her on halloween, one of the worst days in the entire world, as he had tried to make her see sense and pay attention to herself, which was more important in the long term when she had cornered him after the troll had entered the school. Harry had hoped his harsh attitude would have gotten through to her, but it hadn't.

It had mystified him that after everything he had said to her, she would suddenly gravitate towards Weasley. Harry didn't really care if Weasley heard about what his supposed 'best mate' said about him; Weasley spread enough lies that it frustrated him, so why not spread some things in return? When Granger had tried getting him to be friends with them both, he had figured out that someone was getting them to spy on him, but he had had no idea who it could have been. While Dumbledore was definitely someone he didn't trust, there were other professors who could easily have been behind Granger and Weasley's efforts to spy on him, but clearly it was all Dumbledore.

It was weird, he had longed for the chance to come to Hogwarts ever since he had murdered the Dursleys, now he wanted to leave the school to get away from people like Dumbledore and the two moronic Gryffindors who were trying to spy on him. He rewound the little conversation he'd had with Neville Longbottom in his mind, and he wondered how Granger and Weasley were both being paid to spy on him. Weasley was easy, he was getting cash - he wasn't exactly discreet about that despite Granger's best efforts to shut the fucker up - but what did she get out of all this? From what he knew about her, and he had done his research, she was the daughter of a pair of private dentists, so they were probably more than a little well off.

No, she was being paid with something else.

Oh well, it didn't matter, he decided - he would just have to make sure he could avoid them better than he was now. The only problem was could he go for the next six years left of Hogwarts tuition without murdering them? Only time would tell.

* * *

Please tell me what you think.


	12. Chapter 12 End of Year

A little treat before Christmas.

End of year.

Lying awake in bed, the last echoes of the cheers of the Gryffindors who had won this years round of getting the House Cup still ringing in his ears, Harry stayed awake for a moment as he considered the last year. When he had first heard of Hogwarts and how it could help him learn how to use his magic while keeping him away from the cruel world outside the walls, he had been excited, but as the years had worn on he had found that the world wasn't so bad.

But he had hoped that no matter what he would be able to find some kind of peace in the school, but he had discovered he was wrong. The recent mess with the Philosopher's stone and the troll was testament to that, and to cap it all the headmaster was determined to rule his life. Harry had already had a long but meaningless talk with the old wizard; a little later than he'd intended, but Harry didn't care about that. He had known it was coming sooner or later.

To put it bluntly, Dumbledore had told him that he needed to be protected, but after experiencing for himself what the man termed 'protection,' Harry genuinely didn't want anything to do with Dumbledore's plans, but the old man had been adamant. Harry had a feeling the man would have some of his spies and helpers around King's Cross waiting for him, and thanks to his stupid mistake in revealing his metamorphic talent to Hagrid he had the feeling Dumbledore would have given his buddies the perfect means to track him down. He would have to hope for the best when he arrived the the platform when the train pulled in, but he would be prepared no matter what. He also planned to visit Gringotts, and ask the goblins if they could do him a favour, but he hoped that he could get a discount from them.

But it was laughable - Dumbledore could have found a better way to protect him long ago, but Harry knew the old man was only interested in Voldemort, anything else including the Dursleys or the cold London streets where he was either exposed to the weather were just secondary concerns to him. Dumbledore hadn't been bothered about the Dursleys' death, so that probably meant the old wizard wasn't bothered by them anymore since Hagrid had probably told him, but either way he was thankful for that.

But it had been a funny year after the troll incident.

For instance, a few months afterwards he had been put in detention on some trumped up charge by McGonagall. The Forbidden Forest was, well it was how it was explained on the tin, really, and yet the stupid woman had arranged for his detention to be with Hagrid while joining him were the very scared Granger and Weasley. Harry didn't know and frankly didn't care if the two of them had been told beforehand about the plan to put him into the forest for some inane reason, or if they had been asked to do the detention with him and simply hadn't been told where it took place because finding out something was killing the Unicorns was frightening enough, and being saved by a Centaur from the dark, manlike thing had certainly been strange.

Granger and Weasley had wanted to talk about it, but Harry had ignored them, his mind full of furious questions.

Who in their right mind would ever think of putting kids with barely a year of magical training in a detention as dangerous as this, accompanied by a massive simpleton and a bloodhound, armed with only a crossbow? Why were Granger and Weasley so fixated on getting him roped into finding the 'stone' and 'what was underneath the three-headed dog in the forbidden corridor?' What was Voldemort doing, because he was the only sick bastard Harry knew who would even think about killing a Unicorn?

And it was all connected to the cloak he'd gotten during Christmas.

Harry, who had never gotten a Christmas present in his life, though he considered the things he had stolen around that time of year to be presents to himself since they were usually rewards for living for another year before he pawned them to get cash for food, hadn't expected what he had gotten this year. He had gotten some presents from Weasley's mother (he had to give the bitch points for that - she certainly didn't seem to be the type to give up), though he had refused to wear that hideous jumper. In fact, as soon as the Weasley brood still at Hogwarts had turned their backs, he had thrown the jumper, all screeched up, and chucked the fucking thing into the fire. He doubted the Weasley brothers at the school would particularly care since he didn't speak to them, and he always went out of his way to avoid them, but the most interesting thing he had found in the pile of gifts (he'd also ignored the books Granger had sent him - he would check them out at some point for spells) was a cloak that seemed to be partly fabric and partly water, and yet it was capable of rendering him invisible. There was no name on the note, except that it told him that his father had left the cloak in the sender's possession and it was time to return it to the family, and to use it well.

Harry had considered using the cloak as a means to explore the castle and find shortcuts so then he could find ways to plunder it, but strangely enough once he put the cloak on he was drawn to a disused classroom like the ones he had found and converted into his art studio and secondary bedroom in case Gryffindor tower became unliveable. Inside was a mirror, and in that mirror there was an image of himself - but a version of himself that had become what he had always wanted to become; rich, successful, alone. He had longed to be alone because he had no image in his mind of having a family since all his life family had been a fucking disappointment.

Harry had been drawn to the room a few times, each time suffering one bad nightmare after another, but in the end he had decided not to go while something told him to go every single time he held the invisibility cloak. He had gone to the library afterwards and found a spell that detected magical tampering, and he found that there were a few spells on the cloak.

That angered him, particularly the tracking charm. But the compulsion spell was a bit much - when Harry discovered what those spells on his cloak were, to say he almost hit the roof was an understatement. Dumbledore certainly didn't give up - Harry knew he couldn't blame all of his problems on Dumbledore, but truthfully who else could it be? He had seen Snape's handwriting, and knew the greasy bastard hated his father, so why the fuck would James Potter be stupid enough to hand over the cloak? (Rhetorical, Harry had the feeling James Potter wouldn't have pissed on Snape even if the greasy son of a slut was on fire)

Harry pushed that aside and thought about everything Granger and Weasley had told him about the stone when they 'escorted' him to the third floor corridor - they were convinced Snape was stealing the stone, and they were so convinced that they petrified him and levitated his body the whole way there. The moment he was released, he punched both of them so hard their jaws nearly broke, but he didn't give a toss. They told him through their pain that he, as the Boy-Who-Lived, needed to prove to the magical world he could protect and defend the magical world when Albus Dumbledore died.

The fact he might not give a damn about the magical world went right over their heads.

Harry almost laughed as he remembered the really stupid three headed dog - didn't these people realise that if you spent a little time in the library among the outdated books and did a bit of research you could effortlessly find a way to send a Cerberus dog to sleep? But no, Hermione Granger believed that since no one was a clever as her, the library was apparently invisible to everybody else. But the fact was as soon as Harry heard about the third floor corridor he had gone there long before Granger and Weasley dragged him there, and he saw the dog and got out before the stupid creature woke up, after that it was child's play to find out how to deal with it. There weren't that many types of magical dogs out there, after all.

What Harry found confusing the most was just how… easy, on reflection, those stupid traps were. Devil's snare - Harry had a feeling that even if you were absolutely shit at Herbology, and didn't really care for gardening in either the magical or muggle worlds, plants were relatively easy to dispose off with fire. Those enchanted keys that flew around a small room and needed a broomstick to retrieve before the whole swarm suddenly attacked like school of Barracudas.

And then the chessboard, that was clearly meant for Weasley, who didn't seem to give a damn about schoolwork and only seemed to care about food, sleep, chess, and Quidditch.

Finally there was the logic test, clearly meant for Granger. And then he encountered that mirror, and at the time he had the feeling that a reasonably powerful and experienced wizard would have taken one look at those so called traps, and found them laughably easy to get past. It wasn't until he met Quirrell of all people standing in front of the mirror that he gained the answers he needed. Voldemort, who had been separated from his body since that night, had been possessing the hapless and stuttering moron of a defence professor for a while, and yet when Harry revealed he had not really bothered investigating the importance of the stone, the dark lord had laughed at him and explained that the stone would restore his body to him. When Voldemort had said that he was just as useless as he'd imagined, Harry had told him about the destruction of the horcrux, and promised the Dark Lord that he would be taking more notice of things from now on.

Harry didn't know how the stone had fallen into his pocket, but he didn't care before he had used a shield charm to block Voldemort from getting to him after he'd grabbed Quirrell's head and snapped his neck, but it caused the possessed teacher to fall apart in a pile of ash, and he'd left and left the mirror behind. Harry remembered asking Dumbledore about that, and how the headmaster had told him that his mother's protection lived on in him, which was why he had been forced to live with Petunia.

Harry snorted. He didn't believe in love. It was just a stupid chemical/emotional feeling in the body, it wasn't important.

* * *

On the way to King's Cross, Harry had found his own compartment, and after dealing with Malfoy (he was getting seriously worried about the blond boy - first he had punched him hard enough to shatter his skull, and after that he had continued looking for more - was he some kind of pain slut?), he found the time needed to find out if Dumbledore had cast anymore spells on himself and his property. He had scored gold after he found a multitude of charms on the clothes stored in his trunk, and on his school things. It had taken him half an hour to remove them, but he didn't know for sure if Dumbledore's helpers had some other means of tracking him down. He was tense when the train pulled into the platform in its London terminus, and he was slightly hesitant about using the metamorphic disguise he used, but when he'd tried to find books on the topic at Hogwarts' library there wasn't much material on how good they were for concealment.

Putting on the air of being a normal, carefree student simply looking for his parents, Harry kept his eyes open all the time through the pretence - he had no trouble recognising Weasley's mother, and the balding man with her was probably her husband, and both of them were keeping an eye out, though Harry avoided them at all costs, and there was that excitable little man with the top hat who'd met Harry a long time ago when he'd still been with the Dursleys, and shaken his hand - and Harry had gotten a beating though he had had no idea why, but now he knew, the little bastard. But the most striking man of all of them was a tall, gnarled man with a peg leg and a massive electric blue eye that zoomed everywhere.

If this group were not Dumbledore' s little stooges, he didn't know who was. While it was easy to fool those morons, something about the man with the weird eye told Harry he was incredibly dangerous, and he was relieved to get out of the station when he did.

* * *

Short, but sweet, and for those who keep moaning about Harry not being an assassin, why do you think there are different chapters?


	13. Chapter 13 Assassin

Merry Christmas.

As usual, please leave good reviews.

* * *

Assassin.

Sitting in a small cafe, Harry waited for the moment where he could strike. He had spent a long time getting ready for this. Ever since he had murdered the Dursleys, Harry had discovered that he actually enjoyed killing people. He wasn't psychotic or anything like that. There was just something satisfying about seeing someone just not move and not breathe.

The Dursleys had been his first murders. There had been others. Sometimes they had been out of pure desperation, others were just done because it was to save himself, or people as vulnerable as himself. The problem with the police was they were okay throwing people behind bars, but they were absolutely fucking stupid and naive to think their methods were far-reaching enough to do any true good. How many times did rapists walk only to fall back into their old habits? How many paedophiles either slip through the net or were 'rehabilitated' only to do the same thing, and another child paid the price?

Some people like Dumbledore might claim what he had done was cruel, evil, amoral, but Harry didn't care what they thought of him; it wasn't as if they were saints themselves, he was just more honest about himself than they were who hid behind authoritative masks or badges of society.

What did they know? Or more importantly, who the fuck did they think they were to judge him, especially Albus Dumbledore?

Harry sneered as he thought of the old wizard. He knew the meddlesome old fucker would try again sometime in the future, but he had enlisted goblin aid once again so he could stay hidden, and he had also purchased a blood blocker to prevent anyone from finding him. He wasn't sure if it would work in the long term, or if Dumbledore would find it, but it would buy him some time.

The only problem was he didn't know if he could trust the goblins. They were misanthropic, greedy, selfish and only interested in themselves, though he kept his thoughts to himself. He was as misanthropic as they were, and since he had sometimes betrayed the trust of a few people over the years since he'd worked out things like trust, honesty and honour were pathetic little concepts, he wasn't bothered what someone thought but he needed the goblins. It was a simple case of having someone to do the dirty work than anything.

He had the feeling they had only helped him with the Horcruxes because they considered them evil and unnatural abominations, and that Lord Voldemort's actions were simply bad for business. He didn't know and frankly didn't care, but since they weren't really bothered where he lived he didn't care what they did. The information they could give Dumbledore if the old wizard bothered to ask them anything, was limited.

Still, he had better things to do with his time than worry about something like that, he had a job to do here, he had just seen his mark. A thin man in a neat business suit, polished shoes, neat hair and a shaven face whose very being screamed businessman to those around him.

They would be right, he was a businessman.

He also had enemies because some of his business deals were shady and crooked. Harry knew the type - there were two kinds of businessmen; those who were legit and those who were crooked, criminals who dressed in suits and masked their activities. This guy was sort of in between. Harry had looked him up and knew that he had started out as legitimately as he could, but he had problems with money, though he had started out okay at first, but he had become greedy and had stumbled across a drug factory one of his mates had started or something like that.

His friend had only manufactured the drugs, but he lacked the business and administrative knowledge of how to sell them, and from there this guy had begun drug dealing and later got into other nasty little rackets. But he had never been caught because he had enough sense to not keep proof on him, and even if the police suspected him of any wrongdoings he would wriggle his way out of it.

Harry knew this man had enemies - all politicians and businessmen had them, and sometimes they would go the extra mile to get rid of them without getting their hands dirty. Quite a few wanted this man dead. Harry didn't know who his employer was, frankly, he didn't care. All he wanted was the cash he would be getting his hands on for the assassination.

He had been given the job a few days ago since he had left Hogwarts for the summer and had spent some of that time researching this guy, following him under various metamorphic disguises, casting tracking charms on him to work out his daily routine and to find a weakness. He had even broken into the marks' flat and wondered if he should just lie there in wait and then kill him.

But the mark visited dozens of places. Many people liked to believe they were different from others, and to a point that was true. Everyone followed the same habits every day, every year, ate and drank specific foods and drinks, went to the same places. Harry found out his mark spent a lot of time at a local gym, visited half a dozen restaurants, purchased his lunches and breakfasts from expensive places before heading off to work and then returning home.

He ruled out the gym, and then the public places the mark visited often. He didn't want anyone to see the assassination, and he was still not entirely sure how he could kill someone in a public place. After wasting his time for a few days, Harry worked out he simply couldn't - he had spent so long working in the shadows, trying to remain unseen, it had become a trap that he simply couldn't get out of.

Using his custom wand to open the door to the businessman's flat, Harry managed to get inside, delighted he no longer needed to rely on some of those stupid lock picking methods that he'd learnt over the years though some of them involved using a brick to a window. The flat was spartan, and despite the white painted walls, the place was quite dark.

The place was quite large but there was so little in it, in short, it was a place where someone wanted to look good and show off wealth and power, but it lacked substance. In a way, it reminded him of Privet drive though not very much - the Dursleys had been a superficial bunch, but at least their home showed someone lived there. The reason it reminded him of Privet drive was how frigid and neat the place was. Harry almost expected to see a cupboard with a lock attached to it.

Harry had been to the flat quite a few times before, so he knew the layout and knew the best places to hide or simply wait - the flat was large enough for him to go somewhere and the businessman wouldn't really notice his presence. Flicking his wand, Harry checked the tracking charm he had cast on the businessman. He was getting closer to the flat, good. Now he had the problem of deciding how to kill the businessman when it occurred to him. It took the businessman ten minutes to arrive at the flat after Harry had checked the tracking spell, and as soon as the mark had closed and locked the door, Harry had stunned him and bound him tightly before he dragged him into the living room.

After briefly examining the man to make sure the stunning spell had taken effect, Harry left the businessman and walked around the flat, careful not to touch anything as his mind whirled, trying to think of a decent way to deal with the businessman. He had a rough idea in his mind, but he didn't know what to do yet.

Sighing in frustration, Harry walked back to the businessman and woke him up. He was still at first, but then he slowly began to regain consciousness. Harry watched him quietly as he began to wake up. The young wizard was expecting a few things from the businessman. Confusion. Realisation. Shock. Horror. Acceptance.

"Oh, what happened?" He muttered. "What hit me?"

That was the confusion.

"Hold on, why am I tied up? I can't move!"

There was the realisation.

The businessman struggled a little bit to try to get free of his bonds, but it didn't work, and when he was tired he looked up and saw Harry. "Who are you, how did you get into my flat? What do you want?"

And there was the shock.

Harry walked over to the businessman, looking down at him coldly and bent down to address him properly. "In order of asking, I'm your executioner. How did I get in your flat? I'm not going to say a word even if you won't live long enough for it to make any difference. What do I want? I want a large profit."

The businessman tried to wriggle away from him, fear written all over his face, and there was the horror.

"Wait, I-I can pay you! I've got loads of cash-" the businessman whimpered.

Pathetic.

Why was it he always seemed to meet such stupid weaklings?

Harry walked over to him and getting but firmly used his feet to kick the businessman back to the centre of the room so he could keep him in one place and let the poor bastard know that it wasn't going to do any good trying to escape.

"Tell me," Harry's voice cracked like a whip.

The businessman whimpered again. "L-l-let me go, and I'll tell you!"

"Fuck that, tell me now. If I let you, you just run to the front door, or rush to your phone," Harry growled angrily.

The businessman made a sound like a squeak. "O-okay-" he started telling Harry the details of his bank cards (he needed to do it twice because Harry asked him to repeat it for the sake of him writing it into his notebook) but when he was finished, he looked up at Harry confidently. "T-there, I've told you. Are you going to tell me who told you to kill me?"

Harry shrugged and told him.

The businessman rolled his eyes and gave a sarcastic chuckle. "Of course it would be him," he muttered to himself. "I always thought he would do something to get rid of me, but hiring someone to kill me is not what I'd expect."

"Perhaps you should begin looking more closely at how shit the world actually is," Harry told him before mentally shaking his head, why was he even bothering with this? He took a step towards the businessman, and he winced away.

"Wait, I thought you were going to let me go?"

Harry didn't bother correcting him, and moved forward without a word and grabbed the screaming businessman's head and twisted it with all his strength. Standing up Harry let the dead body drop to the ground, and he stepped back a little bit, and pulled a camera out of his jacket and snapped a few pictures to prove to his 'employer' he had succeeded.

On his way out, Harry grabbed the bank cards and just walked out, leaving the door open so the body would be easier to find. He didn't know if the businessman's scream had already attracted attention, but he didn't care. There were quite a few flats that neighboured him, so one of them would probably find the door open and it would on from there.

Harry pictured the scene that the police would find - no signs of forced entry, no fingerprints or anything left on the body besides some rope, and a businessman with a broken neck, but they would find the bank cards missing at some point. That didn't matter - but the time they worked out what had happened, he would have some of the money in his possession along with the cash that his employer would give him upon receiving the photos of his enemy lying on the ground, bound in ropes, with his head at an unnatural angle.

And if his employer was stupid enough to try to betray him, Harry would pop round to his home, which he had found after he had cast a surreptitious tracking spell on him and followed him back to where he lived and make sure the idiot understood the depth of his mistake.

As soon as he left the flat, Harry changed his appearance and headed towards a cash point that was within easy distance to the flat and checked the balance on the card before he withdrew a hundred pounds. He slotted in another card and carried out the same trick before leaving, making sure the hood covering his head was still pulled tight. He didn't care if the muggle police saw his features with this disguise, he would probably never use it again anytime soon, and even if he did it would be long after the police gave up with this crime.

As he went around the city, withdrawing differently sized amounts of cash from different cashpoints, Harry kept a hand on the handle of his wand whenever he saw any muggle police officers, but he wasn't doing anything to attract their attention. He just looked like an ordinary person drawing cash like everybody else did any day of the week.

There were four cards in total, and while it did frustrate him that it took so long to drain them, the quicker he did so the better it would be.

* * *

The businessman's rival leaned forwards eagerly. "Did you really kill him?"

Harry flinched under the appearance he had chosen to serve for this job. He and the rival businessman were sitting in a pub, but while the idiot's voice was low and there were few people around to hear what they were speaking about that didn't mean someone couldn't overhear them by accident, or the moron raised his voice a bit.

"Keep it down," he hissed, pausing to hand him one of the photographs. The rival businessman took the photo and his face paled in shock, and his mouth opened and gurgle that sounded like a dog pissing while panting escaped.

"W-what did you do?"

Harry sighed, this guy was supposed to be smart but if he couldn't tell from the photograph what he had done to this guy's rival then he wasn't very bright. "It's in the photo. Have you got my payment?"

The rival businessman's face was still pale, inwardly making Harry shake his head at this guy's lack of spine, making the young disguised as a twenty-year-old but was actually 12-year old wizard nudge him with the toe of his shoe. The businessman's head shot up and he looked at him in surprise. "Have you got my payment?" Harry repeated, glaring at him impatiently.

The businessman stuttered a little bit, and he gestured under the table to a satchel. Harry looked down at it but he didn't touch it. He just continued to look at the businessman, knowing that he wouldn't have any qualms about doing anything dirty after he'd just had his rival killed. "If you're thinking of betraying me, I will be back, and you can see from those photos that I will kill you," Harry said.

The businessman looked at the photos and nodded feverishly, but Harry didn't trust him. He half expected undercover police officers to be sitting around the pub hoping to catch him, but the businessman shouldn't have gone that far - he had, after all, hired Harry to kill, and even the police at their most desperate would never resort to murder to get someone like that.

Warning given, Harry left the pub, taking the bag with him. When he took the bag into a local public lavatory, he flicked his wand over it from the safety and privacy of a cubicle. Muggles had electronics, but they were no match for the magic of a wand. When he was sure it was safe, he checked the bag carefully, opening it slowly.

What he saw made him almost lose his concentration over his disguise. The bag was full of torn pieces of paper to simulate the rustle of money. The little shit. Harry needed a few minutes to regain some of his composure, but he was still angry with the con. He'd expected the rival businessman to pull something, but he had hoped the odious little fuck had had the common sense to not even try it.

* * *

Sipping his wine in the safety of his home, the rival businessman was giggling over his victory - not only had he gotten rid of one of his biggest rivals who was causing a lot of problems with his own business, but he now had the opposition out of the way, so he could easily take over that silly bastards' businesses though he would need to do it carefully because the police would soon come calling.

He was sure of it somehow. If only that stupid assassin had not broken his rival's neck, made it look either like he had died due to an illness in spite of his perfect health, or driven a car at him, but no. He had to be killed in his own flat.

Oh well, he would weather the storm - he might have been rivals with the businessman, but he doubted the police would become truly suspicious of him. And besides it wasn't as if the silly bastard hadn't had rivals other than himself, there were going to be other suspects.

He was also giggling over getting one over that assassin, but while his threat had been delivered seriously, the businessman doubted it would make much difference. How could the assassin catch up with him?

"Savouring your victory, or just having a last drink?"

The businessman shot out of his chair, and to his surprise he saw a young boy with messy black hair and green eyes, but the most horrifying thing about the boy was the scars that were set into his skin, one of the scars was a faded lightning bolt in his forehead, and the second was around one of his eyes that made it stand out against his pale skin. There was a hardness around the eyes, and the boy's lips were set into a kind of permanent gash.

"W-who are you?"

The boy smirked and closed his eyes. The businessman gasped in shock as the boy suddenly transformed into the bruiser who'd killed his rival.

"Do you know what I found when I opened that bag? Pieces of paper. Just that, no money. Nothing. You didn't plan on paying me anything, did you?"

The businessman dropped his glass and it shattered on the floor. The assassin looked at the pieces of shattered glass and sighed. He held up a wallet that the businessman recognised as his. "I don't think you have the money in this house. I've been searching for an hour. What are the pin numbers of your cards?"

"Is that all you wanted, I can get more cash -?" The businessman began, but the assassin interrupted him. "And then you can lie to me again? I don't think so. You've got quite a few cards in the wallet, so tell me their pin numbers."

The businessman folded his arms. "I don't think so."

The assassin sighed. "Oh for god's sake. I promised I would kill you if you betrayed me, did you think I was joking?"

The assassins' form changed to resemble that of his now deceased rival. "Not that it matters."

The form changed again, this time to resemble the rival himself. The businessman stepped back in fear, realising that the assassin was mocking him for being so foolish.

"Now, tell me the numbers," the assassin said, taking a black stick out of his pocket.

The businessman looked at the stick weirdly for a moment, but then he found himself bound….

* * *

Harry looked down at the dead body of the businessman, seeing the frozen look of horror on the muggles' face. He had spent the last half an hour torturing the man with some of the more milder curses he had found in some of the spell books he had bought from Diagon Alley to make the man open his mouth and speak, but he had quickly gotten the details he had wanted.

The numbers for the cards were in his notebook, and when he left the room with the dead body after removing the curses from the muggles' body, he searched through the house to find bits and pieces to flog.

As he searched through the house, Harry couldn't help but feel that he would need to do some work with his assassination style - while getting the bank cards and their details were pathetically easy, he didn't really like the idea of just taking their money in that manner. He didn't really care how he got paid, but he didn't think it would be a good way of getting potential employers. Who the hell would employ him if he killed them, and stole their credit cards?

Harry sighed and continued to go through the house, but when he was finished he took a photograph of the businessman's' dead corpse and left the house. He had the perfect warning to give to his future employers to make them pay him properly unless they wanted to die.

* * *

I hope this chapter puts aside your thoughts Harry won't be an assassin?


	14. Chapter 14 America

Disclaimer - I don't and will never own Harry Potter.

Guest - I update when I choose too, okay? I like building the chapters up.

Guest - Let me worry about the Horcruxes (stupid idea) and this story, just sit back and relax.

DrizzitTeller - He doesn't kill children. He might consider mass murder, but will always hold back when it comes to children.

mizzrazz72 - The problem with starting out as an assassin if you don't have a reputation to back you up. But after that businessman was killed other potential clients will think twice.

* * *

America.

Harry smirked as he walked around New York City. He had always wanted to come to a place like this though considering what he did know about the MACUSA's mindset towards muggles, or as they called them No Maj's, he wasn't particularly surprised by their stance though he had spent very little of his time in the magical world. When he had first started Hogwarts, Harry had begun to research the magical histories of every single country on the planet. To his surprise, he had discovered that while America had a major population of magicians, they had followed in the footsteps of the magical governments in countries like India, China, Japan, Romania and several others. They were completely isolated from the muggles, and they didn't have the same degree of contact with wizards countries like Britain did. At first, America had been more open-minded towards them before one of their own stupidly showed her magic off to a Muggle who was descended from a gang who'd passed down their hatred of magic through the generations.

Because of the witch in question, the MACUSA had been held responsible for a major infraction of the Statute of Secrecy; so many muggles had learnt of the existence of magic, and even their President had needed to admit they didn't know if they'd managed to erase the memories of all involved.

As a visiting wizard, Harry was allowed a little leeway and was allowed to keep hold of his wand (his custom wand, knowing that even if a muggle did take it, they'd never be able to hold onto it for more than a moment thanks to the safety features), and could venture out into the muggle world.

Truthfully the MACUSA didn't really care what he did so long as he didn't cause a major infraction, not that Harry intended to do anything like that of course. Harry had visited a few places in the MACUSA but otherwise, he had stayed out of their jurisdiction and the only way he knew how to do that was to spend his time outside it. He wasn't stupid, he knew he could survive out here without needing magic, and as long as the muggles left him alone then the MACUSA would leave him to his own devices.

Sitting down for lunch in a small cafe, Harry quietly ate his meal and reflected on his plans. He had been travelling around for a short while, hoping that his constant movement was keeping Dumbledore off his back, but until he could be sure he wasn't being followed by the old wizard's cronies it was the best defence he had.

Harry wondered if Dumbledore would hear about the two muggle businessmen he'd killed not so long ago, but he doubted it - why would Dumbledore care about the deaths of two insignificant muggles? Speaking of which, his mind was still swamped by what he'd read on his journey to the USA. He was still surprised that the countries abroad had done what America had done centuries before muggle Europeans had bothered to sail across the Atlantic and colonised and conquered this massive continent - do away with all contact with muggles. Harry supposed it made sense that they'd do that - they had been hunted and persecuted by muggles for centuries, but with America, he could see the advantage of breaking away. With the magical world truly hidden with only a few of witches and wizards from the MACUSA venturing out to ensure the muggles didn't notice anything odd in their perfect little world, the only muggles who posed a threat were those either descended or truly affected by the near reveal in 1790, and even if the law set by President Emily Rappaport was repealed in the 1960s, there were still signs of it in the magical world.

Harry had visited the magical world in America, and he had spotted the prejudices instantly. They weren't hard to find, but he guessed the current generation had simply inherited them from their parents. Pushing all that aside (he didn't really care about the prejudices in the magical world, though if he were honest he could say many of them were too deep-rooted to deal with, and many of them were deserved), Harry focused on eating his meal and planning his trip across America. He planned to remain in New York for a few more days before he moved Westwards, visiting both magical and non-magical places simultaneously. He wanted to develop his knowledge for the next time that fucking son of a whore attacked him again.

Harry grimaced as he thought of Lord Voldemort. Oh, when he got his hands on that freak of nature, he would rip him to bits. No, he would torture the snake-faced wannabe ruler of planet Earth slowly and painfully until he died. Hopefully, he'd do it in front of Dumbledore and some of the others to show them he wasn't going to take their shit.

Harry pushed that thought aside and once he had finished and paid up, he left and began exploring the rest of the city. He visited public libraries, bookshops, art galleries to soak up as much American culture as he could.

After spending two days in luxury, Harry spent another two days living in a seedy motel (charmed and warded by himself, of course, to prevent muggles from getting any stupid ideas) before he moved on after thoroughly cleaning himself (he wanted to appear presentable).

* * *

Harry was sitting opposite the chieftain and two other members of the tribe with a blazing magical fire between them, awaiting their decision to help him. Ever since the Native American Indians had either died out or had gone into preservations to ensure their way of life survived, they hadn't known that the MACUSA had taken steps to ensure their magical counterparts were given a better option - whole swaths of land were warded to prevent muggles from hunting or meddling in their affairs, and they were thankful for it. With the sheer size of America itself, it was pathetically easy for the American wizards to find places for the magical Indians to live in.

That made things easy for Harry to reach them.

But the Native Magical American Indians had not received a one-sided package deal. The MACUSA needed their help at specific points in their mutually shared histories, much like the druids in various European countries, but otherwise, they left the Indians alone except for rare moments when the Wizards needed their help with potions only the Indians had access to.

Harry had only just arrived at the Indians' settlement and he had introduced himself to the chief and two of his advisors and relayed his story to them, worried that they would say no to him and send him on his way. He had spent an hour explaining to them his history with Lord Voldemort and a desire to learn more about magic so he could survive to live a ripe old age.

Finally, the Chieftain spoke, his voice grave. "You said you are a thief?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, but I only steal from No-Maj's," he said, though he wondered if it made any difference to these people. They didn't have that many ties with the American wizards, so why should it make any difference, but he decided to give them a bit of honesty since he hadn't actually stolen anything from any magical. Yet.

The Chieftain and the other two members of the council of this tribe muttered gutturally at the mention of No-Maj's, and Harry had a feeling that they were still unhappy and nursing a truly deep resentment towards the muggles for what they'd done even if their own way of life had been barely touched by the settlers, but he didn't care.

The Chieftain leant forwards. He was a big barrel of a man, and in the darkness with the only light coming from the stars above and the flames of the fire highlighting his already intimidating visage, he was not a man to be trifled with. "Why do you seek our help? Surely your vaunted schools can teach you more than us?"

Harry took a deep breath. He had more or less expected a question like that, but he hoped his own response was enough to sway them. "The headmaster of my current school tried to manipulate a situation during the year - he had set up a dangerous trap, using an equally dangerous bait as a lure for the Dark Lord hunting me down. He clearly knows the Dark Lord's still alive, but he hasn't done anything; Lord Voldemort is a spirit, his soul has been split into pieces and scattered," he held back the urge to grin as the Indians stiffened, they clearly recognised what he was describing, "but has Dumbledore done anything? No. He seems intent on controlling my life rather than weakening the Dark Lord. If I was the one in charge, I would try to locate the soul fragments and destroy them. I would personally try to track Voldemort down and attack him. I would not ever let him near me never mind a school full of children. He might be powerful but Dumbledore is a moral weakling, like many of his followers, including my now deceased parents; they knew the dangers, but instead of taking the war to the Dark Lord, and teaching him not everyone will roll over and die just because he appears with a scary face, his followers robed in black with masks."

Harry took another deep breath to regain some of his composure. "You don't have to help me. I can move on, travel to either another village like this one or I can go abroad and find other people to help me. I want your help because everything can be an advantage. I am not asking for all of your knowledge - all I wish is your animagi knowledge, and the means to enhance my senses. I grew up in a harsh environment and I know how important it is to survive, to plan out. If I can become an animagus with your help, it could truly be a benefit. Yes, I am a thief - but an animal form can be useful, it can be used for an escape, it could be used to spy covertly."

The Chieftain and his aides only needed to speak for ten minutes before they came back with their decision. In that time, Harry was debating what he would do if the Indians did refuse to help. He even toyed with wiping the villagers out and stealing the knowledge that was left, but he quickly discounted it; he didn't know enough about the magic these people used, and he was afraid that if he made a mistake it would have ramifications. Another thing to worry about was if the magic he used would be picked up by the MACUSA. He didn't know what they would do if they traced it back to him, the last thing he wanted was for them to arrest him, especially in a place like Hogwarts - he needed to be free, he didn't want to be arrested and imprisoned because of the deaths of hundreds of Indians.

The settlement was quite crowded; Harry estimated there were at least 2 or 3,000 people in this settlement, but he couldn't be sure, and that led to another concern; how could he be sure he could wipe out the entire village by himself? The Indians might have magical skills the MACUSA didn't know about, and he was still learning magic himself. In the end, he had decided to wait for their decision, and if their answer was no then he would leave, but he might come back and steal their knowledge anyway, and if the Indians were stupid enough to come after him after putting 2 and 2 together, well he could send their heads back.

He didn't need to worry, the Chieftain and his council members had decided to help him, but they would teach him how to become an animagus and just that. It took a few days for them to prepare the potion needed for the ritual. In that period, Harry entered a circle with small fires arranged in a circle, with Indian women silent pouring a powder on them. The fires reacted with the powder, creating a pungent fragrance. One of the Indians whispered to Harry he should take slow, deep breaths and let the powder enter his body. Harry did as he was told, but he was prepared in case they did something.

But as he inhaled the fumes, he didn't feel lightheaded, in fact, he felt stronger, though he couldn't explain why.

The Indians silently handed him the potion. They had spent hours gathering and foraging the ingredients and placing them in a clay pot which they magically boiled. The potion itself resembled a thick liquid that had the consistency of porridge. Although he bravely downed the potion after a moment's hesitation, Harry still felt a little nervous downing the potion. After he'd drunk it, the Indians pushed him gently into a sitting position; Harry didn't resist, he had been told they would do this so he didn't fight back. Trouble was he had to fight the urge to, well fight back.

Harry breathed in and out slowly, letting the potion take effect. Locked in a limbo, Harry found himself walking down a street. No, he knew what was happening - he was in his mind, about to meet his animal self, but he hadn't expected it to be….. here.

Lit by street lamps, it was hard for Harry to get an idea of where he was, but even with the street lamps, it was virtually impossible for him to work out where he was. It was so dark, not to mention very silent; his footsteps echoed in the night, and there was no sound of cars or motorbikes in the air. It was eerie.

Suddenly he understood even though his mind out of body but within his body experience - the animal form he had was an animal that was local to an ordinary street. What was it? A dog? A mouse? A rat? A bird? A cat? A fox? Was it a bug?

No. It couldn't be a bug. There wasn't enough light for him to get down on the ground and look through the dirt for a caterpillar or a cockroach. Harry grimaced as he thought of his last encounter with cockroaches, filthy, foul-sweet smelling little bastards.

Suddenly he heard a cawing noise, and he looked up and found himself looking at a big black raven.

* * *

Some days after his meeting with the Indians, Harry was once again on the move as he travelled through America. One of the places he'd decided to visit was West Virginia. As places went West Virginia was certainly beautiful, and yet as Harry walked through the silent woods he found the place very eerie, so eerie in fact he felt almost threatened. He had cast a nifty charm that made him virtually invisible and another spell to silence the sound of his breathing and the sounds his boots made on the ground.

Hermione Granger had probably studied ahead of everyone else, but Harry had as well. He had also purchased books of a very questionable nature after he'd left Hogwarts for the summer holidays, and he had studied them almost religiously, knowing that his enemies would not let him rest easy. But truthfully it was his nature to be paranoid and suspicious.

He was certainly suspicious here. Something was wrong.

He had been trekking through these woods along this road for hours now, and he had even ventured deep into the forest looking for animals so he could kill them for their meat, but he hadn't found anything. It was as if they had disappeared and left all this greenery. It didn't make any sense.

There was something truly wrong here. Something so wrong he had cast several spells on himself so he wouldn't just be unseen, but would also be unheard. Now that he had awoken his animal form, all his senses were on the alert, and he didn't like what he was getting back. Harry didn't know why or what made him cast those spells, but he did them anyway. All he knew was something was very, very wrong. When he had left the Indians he had asked them if there anything he should expect from his first transformation. He had stayed in the village to push his transformation forward, but when he had with a little effort he had learnt that his senses would be a little bit more enhanced, and that was a good thing otherwise he would have just wondered through these woods without any suspicion.

Harry was tempted, really tempted, to transform now and take to the air so then he could get out of the woods but he decided to stay the way he was as he walked along the road when he heard the sound of a car speeding along the road behind him. Harry stopped and turned around, and watched as a bright yellow car came speeding towards him. As the car came closer he could see the face of a young woman, maybe a few years older than Harry himself, but the car sped by him so fast he could barely see her features.

The car went around a sharp turning that went left quite a distance away, so Harry closed his eyes and pictured his raven form and he took to the skies. Without a broomstick, he felt free in the air since he wasn't trying to stabilise his balance. He might have had a natural gift with broomstick flight, but Harry didn't like the idea of sitting astride one of those things for long periods, and he was thankful he had his raven form.

In the air it was liberating compared to having to walk, in the air, there was no such thing as weariness that you'd get on the ground. But in his mind Harry Potter was still worried; in the air, he could see there were no other birds. That made no sense - he had been using his raven form on and off for a while, transforming into his raven form when he was alone and he had taken to the air more than once; he had always been surrounded by birds.

But not here.

He heard something he recognised at once, a scream. Harry dove down and followed it. The yellow car hadn't gone far after it had turned around the corner, it had come to a stop but he could see two people near the woman. They looked deformed, misshapen. There was a flash of light but his eyesight caught the swing of an axe blade as one of the people beheaded the woman. Diving down and landing on a tree branch silently, Harry got a good look at the two people, though even that word was being a bit kind.

They were misshapen and deformed alright, and they were dressed in raggedy clothes that looked like they hadn't been cleaned for a long time. The smaller of the two looked like he was a teenager, but his clothes looked worn and patchy, but as he flew to another branch Harry got a good look at their lumpen faces. It was like God (not that Harry believed in a Creator) had tried to create a human face but something went wrong with the clay and it had left some faces that were warped.

The teenager looked like a replica of the older one, they had the same lumpen face, the same stringy thin hair, their mouths had misshaped jaws and they had a few teeth missing. They both picked up the woman's dead body and just dumped it in the back of the car before the teenager hurried to where the woman's head was lying, picked it up, went back to the car and threw it back into the car before they both sat in the car and drove off.

His curiosity aroused Harry followed the car. Those….. people, whoever they were, didn't take the car too far, taking it to an old factory. They stopped the car, one got out and opened a door and drove the car inside. Unseen Harry flew to one of the open windows and found himself inside a large section of the factory, a massive and dark space.

Cars, trucks, lorries, school buses filled the space, some of them covered with layers of dust, some of them had their doors open but the majority of the cars were shut, the dust rendering the insides dark. In the lighting he had to work with Harry could see one or two of the cars had dark stains on them like someone had spilt oil on them, but after what he'd seen he knew the spills were blood that had long since turned black.

Lifting off from his perch Harry flew over the impromptu garage and found himself looking at cars with a few smashed windshields. Sweeping down to one of these cars, the raven form of Harry Potter poked his head through the windshield and deftly hopped over the dusty shards of glass. The inside of the car stank with the smell of age. This car looked like it hadn't been used in a long time, and as he studied the inside of the car he found dust covered roadmaps and a doll that had just been abandoned in the car. Had the kid just been killed, like that woman? In his raven form, Harry heard a sound, and he quickly jumped into the shadows of the car so he could see out but no one could notice him thanks to his black plumage.

* * *

Fans of the horror genre, take a wild guess what horror movie I took inspiration for the finale of this chapter and for the next chapter.


	15. Chapter 15 The Inbred Cannibals

Where did I get the inspiration for the hillbilly cannibals? Wrong turn, of course. When I first watched the movie, it had a big effect on me, and when I watched Wrong Turn 2, I thought it was amazing. For those of you who got it right, congratulations though some of you had great guesses. I never saw the Hills have Eyes movies or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Never found the time.

* * *

The Inbred cannibals.

Through the window coated in dust, the raven that was Harry Potter could see the silhouette of someone that was padding around the factory floor.

Whoever it was was skirting around the cars, but he couldn't see what the figure was really doing thanks to the lack of decent light and the overall dirt covering the windows. Harry kept very still, prepared to return to his human form, but he resisted the urge, but that didn't mean he didn't feel any less threatened by whatever was happening.

Part of him wished his animal form had more powerful body weapons that could rip someone to pieces, but he was thankful he had a form that could fly and hide in relatively tight squeezes. Harry watched the silhouette come close to the car, and he had to force himself to stay still - his bird form lacked the ability to stay still in the same place - so it was a relief when the figure moved off. Cautiously he hopped close to a broken window and peeked out to get a better look at whoever had passed by, but they had moved off. Taking flight again gently, resisting the urge to caw in his raven form, Harry swooped as close as he dared to the figure so he wasn't seen.

It was a girl, but as he took a good look at her lumpen face with her misshaped mouth with a few teeth sticking out like they couldn't fit inside, he wondered just how many more people there were like this. She was like the boy he had seen out there, deformed and disgusting to look at, with ragged clothes that looked like they'd been patched up again and again. Harry flew around the girl, keeping to the shadows - he didn't know what this girl or the others did to animals but he wasn't going to put anything up to the test, especially after he saw what they'd done to that woman.

Harry still wasn't sure what the point of that was, but he was going to find out before he moved on again in case he came back to these parts. Leaving the garage, Harry stayed in the shadows and flew through the place, and he came across a massive room on the floor that was packed with junk. Flying over the junk once or twice, letting his birds' eyes take in the scene, he saw the entire place strewn with junk taken from the different cars, just abandoned now their owners were gone.

There were buckets full of car keys that had long since begun to overflow over the ground, or they'd just been carelessly thrown there. And it wasn't just car keys just thrown around the place carelessly, there were walking sticks leaning against the wall connected by dusty cobwebs. Sunglasses were heaped on top of a table, books were scattered around with pages missing like whoever had handled them last had tried to read them but had gotten bored of them pretty quickly. Some of them looked like they hadn't been touched in years. What really disturbed Harry was there were toys in the room, quite a few of them were stained with blood that had long since turned black. Some of them must have been in this place for years.

While Harry didn't care about people, believing that life was wasted on them because they took up space, he did not want children to suffer, which was a leftover shard in his otherwise cold heart which had been hardened over the years. Harry had come across his fair share of children being killed or sexually tortured over the years, and this was after he had fled Privet Drive. If there was one thing he hated, it was children being killed for no good reason. But he was still wanted to know the answer to what had happened to that woman, so he left the room and headed out.

* * *

He came across another storeroom, this time it had piles of clothes just dumped untidily inside. Harry flew over to the clothes, noting the dried blood staining them from large holes, but there were some he knew were from bullet wounds. Most of them looked like they'd been here for years. Some of the clothes he saw were torn to shreds like they'd just been ripped off the bodies and then casually dumped here to rot. Feeling he wasn't getting anywhere, Harry flew into a corner and thought of his human form, and the moment he stood up he took out his wand and cast the disillusionment charm on himself and left the room to explore the rest of the factory. He didn't know where he was going, but as he crept around he saw the corridors strewn with all kinds of junk taken from the cars. It was like those deformed freaks (he didn't like using that word to describe anyone, well except Voldemort) had just taken them out of the cars and whatever was in the garage and just dropped them wherever there was free space. Some of this stuff was old, but Harry didn't bother taking a good look as he walked through the place.

Strangely he didn't see any of those deformed characters, and he was curious about where they were. After wandering about for over an hour (it could have been longer), Harry went further down into the basement and he found himself staring at rows of refrigerators that looked like they had been snatched from a museum. All of them were old and covered with grime and filth, and were powered by electricity supplied by a petrol driven generator that sounded like it was on its last legs.

Harry opened one of the fridges and backed away out of reflex of the stench of cold meat. If he had thought the outsides of the fridges were bad, that was nothing to what it was like on the inside. Packed into the fridge neatly were dozens of plastic boxes, some of them with dried tracks of blood on them. Picking one of them out, Harry opened it cautiously - he had a nasty suspicion about what was inside the box - and he had to force down the rising bile as he saw the contents of the box before he re-sealed it and put it back into the fridge.

Walking away from the fridges Harry went back upstairs.

* * *

He thought he could hear a television, but he wasn't sure. Besides the nearest town that was inhabited was a good couple of miles from this factory, so there couldn't be a signal. Giving in to his curiosity, Harry followed the sounds as quietly as he could until he came across a massive room that had been transformed into a parody of a living room, dining room and kitchen. The boy, girl and the adult he had seen before were here, the boy was running around with a big childish grin on his disgusting face, and Harry tensed whenever the freak came too close to where he was standing by the door, but thanks to the charm he'd put on himself, he was virtually invisible.

He couldn't see what was really happening around him, so he quietly left the safety of the doorway and moved to the side to get a better view. What he saw at the kitchen nearly made him vomit. Hanging from the ceiling in a web of barbed wire was hanging the decapitated remains of the woman Harry had seen being killed earlier on the road, like the sides of beef or pork in an abattoir. There was another of these deformed freaks, a woman by the look of it with thinning hair around her lumpen and misshapen head, by a table cutting something up. Harry went closer and saw what it was. She was methodically peeling the skin from the head of the woman Harry had seen being killed before lifting the head to make the mouth point upwards. In that position, the woman used a sharp knife to easily slice out the tongue before using a smaller knife to peel the eyelids away to cut out the eyeballs without piercing them. With each piece of flesh removed, the woman dropped some of the pieces carelessly into a bucket, but the majority went into a steaming pot.

The woman jerked her head upwards, barking out a guttural command that the young girl obeyed instantly. She jumped out of the seat she had been sitting on and rushed to help her. Harry watched as the girl picked up a knife the size of a small machete and started hacking into the chest of the dismembered body with a sloppy professionalism that a butcher would be terrified of. The girl happily ripped into the flesh, and when she got to the organs, she tore the intestines out and dumped them into a tub underneath before taking out the stomach, the liver, the kidneys before she carefully but firmly sliced through the ribcage to get to the heart and the lungs.

Harry gently walked away from the door and moved further into the living space, noting the grimy dining table with unwashed plates and bowls littered over it. He found what he had thought was a television. It was a television, a model that hadn't been used for years, but the screen quality was awful, but he couldn't make out what was on the screen, but he quickly put that aside so he could focus on the massive figure he had just noticed next to a stringier figure, the same freak he had seen earlier with the boy when they had killed that woman on the road.

He was enormous, dressed in much the same way as the rest of his family, but Harry could see the way his form was too big for the relatively small armchair which was at least half as big as he was and could only just contain his form. Harry saw the bony, sinuous muscle that looked like coiled steel that made up the massive thing's arms. His face wasn't as badly deformed as the rest of his family, but it was still misshapen underneath a head of hair that was short like a brush. He had a few teeth sticking out of his mouth.

Harry skirted around him, staying very quiet thanks to long experience as a burglar, but he couldn't see himself liking nicking anything from these bozos when he came across a couple of cages in a corner. They were basically massive wire traps with barbed wire threaded across the wire, and it was dark but Harry couldn't tell whether the wire was blooded at all, though it wouldn't have surprised him, especially when he saw the dusty, cobwebbed coated skeletal remains of a kid clutching a teddy bear. The skeleton, a girl by the look of the clothes, looked like it had died there and just left there though from what he had seen so far, Harry wondered why the cannibals hadn't eaten the kid when it was still fresh.

Something bumped into him and Harry's blood seemed to chill when he heard a surprised grunt, and he looked to his left and saw the boy. He hadn't even noticed the deformed son of a bitch coming near him, he'd been so wrapped up in his rage these animals had starved a child to death in a cage while they ate the remains of her relatives and God knew who else. The boy had practically pushed right into him, and now he realised that he was there. The boy was grunting and getting the attention of his family, though the father stood up being as he was the closest and he filled the space.

Harry growled under his breath as the boy began to hoot excitedly. "Take your hand away from me," Harry snapped when the boy's fingers jabbed him in the chest.

The entire family was alert now, and the mother and girl dropped what they were doing, and came over. Cursing himself for revealing his presence Harry tried to scuttle back into a corner, and keep quiet, but the freaky hillbillies were surrounding him. Flicking his wand, Harry cancelled the charm keeping him invisible, knowing that as soon as he became visible they would try to kill him, and he had a few nasty curses in mind as the charm was cancelled.

The moment he became visible the boy and the girl hooted, and judging from their attitude they were both surprised and yet torn between happiness, not excitement he was there, and annoyance he had gotten inside their home in the first place. Harry raised his wand and fired an exploding curse at him. The boy screamed as the curse caught him in the chest, blood exploding out of the open wound. The large one, the father bellowed with rage and began to charge towards him. Harry cursed and fired a disarming charm at the thing charging him, and it caused him to be thrown back, and Harry turned to face his other opponents. He had expected the girl and the mother to try to attack him, but they hadn't. When he turned he found the boy being tended to by his mother and sister, blood spurting from the wound still like a geyser.

While he was capable of fighting brilliantly and bravely, Harry had learnt over the years that you shouldn't try your luck. He was tempted to transform back into his raven form and escape, but a grunt caught his attention and Harry turned to see the father getting slowly to his feet. The deformed figure looked between him and the still grounded boy before sending him a baleful look. Harry watched as he stood up slowly, gnashing his teeth angrily.

A scream that sounded more like an animal had been strapped to a cement mixer echoed through the factory, and Harry turned as his peripheral vision caught sight of movement to the side, but the girl slammed into him like a train. Harry groaned as his body landed on the ground, but he didn't let the impact knock him out even if he'd been surprised by it. He knew if he was too badly stunned then they would on him in moments, and after what he'd just done he knew they would tear him to pieces. The girl had been knocked off of him in the fall, but she quickly regained her senses and threw herself on him, but he had had the time he needed to make sure he had his wand. Thanks to the features built into it, the wand instantly shot back into his hand when he raised his wrist.

Harry fired another curse at the girl to send her flying away, but the girl's attack had given the boy the time to stand up on his own and attack him with his mother right behind him. Harry waved his wand, sending out a combination of powerful and painful curses and simple and relatively painless charms at the inbred freaks. He sent the boy flying back so fast that he crashed into the makeshift kitchen, sending the still boiling pan containing the remains of the woman to the floor with a crash.

The mother staggered back after receiving a curse that had twisted her right arm into an unnatural position, but the girl distracted him again. Harry had to admire them; even after they had been cursed brutally and he'd fired so many painful curses at them they had barely responded. That surprised him; he had read those curses were incredibly painful, and yet these inbreds seemed virtually immune to them. The only thing that bothered them or made them back off for a bit was when they had a wound that gushed blood.

The patriarch of the clan smashed into him so hard that Harry felt he had been knocked by a heavy duty goods train rushing at high speed followed by an express train. Harry growled in exasperation. He had had more than enough of this. It was becoming obvious to him that unless he did something, he would probably make a mistake that got himself killed.

The patriarch pulled back his fist and was about to punch Harry in the face with a blow that the young wizard knew would knock him senseless or split his head open. Before the patriarch could punch him, Harry transformed into his raven form and cawed, taking flight and flying up to the ceiling supports. Transforming back into human form and hoping the support stanchion was strong enough to hold his weight, Harry raised his hand and summoned the wand back to him, but the girl caught it in her hand, clearly remembering the last time he'd done that.

Harry growled under his breath, knowing that the protection spells and curses on the wand would ensure it was safe, but he didn't want these freaks to get their disgusting claws on it. Harry focused on the parseltongue protections on the wand and hissed a command.

The girl noticed something was wrong when the air around her began to smell before she saw the tip of the wand start to glow orange, but she didn't have time to do anything when she went up like a torch!

The rest of the family began screaming when the girl was caught in a blazing inferno, but they couldn't get close enough to help the girl since she was rushing about everywhere in a panic to put the flames out. She bumped into the armchairs in front of the television set, and they caught alight very quickly and easily. The boy rushed to help his sister, ignoring his mother's guttural cries to stop him. Harry levelled his wand at them when they were close enough, and he waited an extra second as the boy caught fire himself, but he didn't have any more time to do anything but scream in panic as his sleeve was set alight before the double exploding curses hit them both in the chest and the boy and his sister both exploded into burning pieces.

The sight of their children being killed sent their parents into a rage, but Harry transformed back into his raven form and took flight again while the mother and father screamed with fury.

Harry flew to the doorway and transformed back into his human form, and the two inbreds rushed towards him, but the young wizard stayed where he was standing. He had grown tired of the fight and he wanted it to end. It was just himself and these two now, and he had to end it soon otherwise he would grow too tired to carry on and would make that one mistake that would be his end. Damn it, he thought, he didn't have any time for this. He raised his wand, calling up all of his hatred. He had gathered quite a bit of it over the years; he had hated the Dursleys for abusing him, the neighbours on the street and in the neighbourhood for turning a blind eye, the school with both the students and the teachers either refusing to help or refusing to stand on their own two feet and act like adults, the pedophiles he had encountered after his escape and the one he had killed in Brixton when he was 8.

He summoned the hatred he felt for Lord Voldemort for destroying his chances for a normal childhood where he would never have been exposed to such pain over the years. His hatred swelled as he thought about the Weasley family for daring to try to steal what little he had left, he fed his disgust for Hermione Granger for being such a simpering little bimbo who was thirsty for Dumbledore's endorsement, his frustration for Severus Snape's inability to look beyond his appearance to see he was not James Potter.

Thinking of James made him think of his own turbulent feelings towards his parents for being so stupid and either not retreating to a more safer location or being so cowardly they didn't go after Voldemort or his Death Eaters, it might not have stopped Voldemort himself, but it would have made the Death Eaters think twice about going after them.

He also fed his hatred for Albus Dumbledore for forcing him to grow out of being a child, for helping Voldemort stealing his life, and for setting up the pattern he was sure would be his future years at Hogwarts. He forced all of his hatred into a ball and directed it to his wand.

He was just in time as well. Both of the cannibals approached him with murder in their eyes like feral animals that had been driven insane. It reminded him of the time he'd encountered that Rottweiler on the streets which had been bleeding with matted fur, eyes mad with rage, drool dripping from its maw in puddles.

Harry levelled his wand.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

* * *

In the MACUSA, two wizards and a witch on monitoring duty watched as the indicator which showed the use of magic outside of the magical community's enclaves hit an all-time high.

"There it is again, a killing curse this time," one of the wizards commented.

The supervising wizard frowned at his two colleagues. For the last hour they had been detecting the use of spells, some of the basic defence spells, a few charms and transfiguration spells, all of them located in a relatively remote region of West Virginia. But then they had grown more powerful in intensity. The basic and fairly harmless curses were replaced by curses and spells that were definitely listed as dangerous. There had been a major spike that the indicator hadn't been able to identify before an exploding curse was used.

And now a killing curse had been used.

The wizard knew his options were limited. The MACUSA was one of many magical communities scattered across the Earth which preferred virtually total isolation, but it was not unusual for some of their citizens from going out and actively using magic in No Maj places like cities. The MACUSA had a long list of cases where witches and wizards sometimes did just that for insane reasons that no one could really work out.

"Where about in West Virginia is this happening?" The wizard asked sourly as he tried to mentally sort out the list of things he would need to do.

The witch pointed out the place on the map. "It's practically forest," she reported. "According to our records there isn't a town there, but there is one a few miles off."

The supervisor studied the map wondering what was happening there that it could make someone use the killing curse of all things. Unlike many magical countries, the killing curse was not illegal. In a way it was similar to the American constitution drawn up by the No Majs' since every single witch and wizard taught in the schools like Salems or Illvermorny was taught the curse in order to help them survive. But it was dangerous to teach the students those curses because they could actively try to become a dark wizard and go on a violent rampage. But the MACUSA had put that rule into place to the consternation of the ICW and the rest of the international community, which made many of the countries abroad, particularly Britain, tell the Americans not to do it. The MACUSA had ignored them. They had still been reeling from the Dorcas Twelvetrees disaster where the stupid bitch had caused a massive calamity which almost revealed the magical world, and the MACUSA had realised the very real danger to their citizens, especially since Twelvetrees (the wizard pitied the family - they had been truly disgraced by the scandal) had stupidly revealed the existence of Illvermorny, but what made it worse was the stupid woman had told the muggle she had fallen in love with the basic address to the school.

Was it any particular wonder the President at the time had been forced to put the lives of the children before the desires of the ICW?

For the countries who had told the Americans not to go far, well what would they know? The British had never dealt with a breach in the Statute of Secrecy that they'd had to deal with, and with morons like Albus Dumbledore and Cornelius Fudge running their country, they would probably point the finger at some poor fool if they'd had to suffer a breach like they'd had to deal with.

But the killing curse being fired in a forested place was a surprise.

"Re-check our records," the supervisor ordered the witch at last when the indicator flashed again. "Another killing curse?" he said in shocked exasperation. "Right, that's it. Send a message to the Auror department. I want a team sent out to investigate at once. Also, track the wand signature of whoever it was. I want them here for interrogation immediately."

"Understood."

The supervisor turned to the witch who was just leaving to head to the records department. "Also while you're at it," he added, "contact the Indians and find out more about the region."

The witch nodded as she left for her task, leaving the supervisor to study the indicator in front of him.

* * *

Harry looked down at the dead bodies of the inbreds. It had been hard to kill them both since they moved like lightning, and as soon as he'd killed the patriarch, the matriarch had gone for him like a raging hellcat before he'd dropped her with another killing curse. Harry stared down at the dead corpses of the cannibals, taking in their still forms, examining the contours of their misshapen bodies. He slowly walked around them both to check if they were dead and not still alive; the theory was one thing, but he had never used any of the Unforgivable curses before.

He had acted in self-defence, but he knew that some people would never like him using the spells, but he didn't care. And yet, when he had used the killing curses, he had felt a rush. The sense of power he had felt when he had cast the spell once had been exhilarating for him, but when he had cast the second killing curse that rush had doubled.

Harry didn't know for sure what was going to happen now, whether he would be driven to become like Voldemort (he wondered if the Dark Lord had felt like this when he had cast the killing curse successfully for the first time), but he would probably not use the spell again unless provoked. Harry looked down at the corpses and then around the room which doubled as their home, and he decided now was a good time to leave.

He was just about to enter the factory when he heard the sound of people apparating into the garage area, which made him stop at once when he realised what had happened. When he had used his wand, cast those spells including the killing curses, it had obviously attracted attention from the MACUSA, and now the Aurors were here to investigate. Harry knew what would happen to him if they caught him, but he knew he couldn't use magic to escape them. If he cast a spell they'd be sure to pick it up, and it would just allow them to track him down much more easily.

Harry considered using his raven form, but he quickly discounted it. He didn't know how much magic his transformations gave out, but he guessed that it happened, but even if it didn't he still didn't know enough of how the transformation process worked it still was not worth it. But he didn't know how he could escape from this place without being caught or seen.

Creeping back the way he'd come, Harry hoped the distance between him and the American wizards would give him enough time to find a way out of here, but he didn't know how much time it would take for them to track him down while he tried to find a window or a door he could use.

* * *

If there was one thing he hated about creeping about when there were people looking for him when they didn't know where he was, it was having to take his time to find a way out when trying to find a way to escape. The factory was dark and the corridors were long, and they were cluttered with all kinds of junk taken from whatever wandered into the path of the inbred cannibals, but the good news was the American wizards themselves were having to negotiate with the darkness to find their way around.

The Americans were so predictable. They used lighting spells to find their way around, and that made it easier for him to pick them out and either avoid them or wait until they had passed him by. But as he walked through the corridors of the factory, he wondered if he had truly killed all of the cannibals - he had taken a good look at the patriarch, and that thing he had seen outside with the boy had not been him. There was another. He just hoped the Americans stumbled into him, because if he did then he would definitely need to use magic to deal with him. Harry was relieved after what had seemed like forever he had come across a part of the factory with old dusty windows. It might not be a way out, but it was hopeful.

Harry stopped when he heard a shuffling sound, like someone moving towards him, and he heard what sounded like a low laugh, or a series of sounds like a laugh strung together. Harry stiffened, knowing that no wizard would ever sound like that, but as he listened he realised whoever was laughing was coming closer, so he took cover in a darkened corner. The figure came in through a doorway, and Harry cursed fate for pushing him with this inbred. The cannibal was tall, leaner than the patriarch he had killed, but he was more deformed. It was like the patriarch was still more or less human while this thing was not, but Harry didn't care.

He took out his wand - he had slipped it back into his pocket to make it easier for him to slip through the factory - but he hoped he didn't need to use it, but the cannibal lumbered into the room, chuckling still like a kid in a sweet shop. Harry watched as the cannibal walk past him and then disappear, but he didn't move. He waited there for a long while before he was sure the inbred was no longer there, then he walked out through the same way the inbred had come from but he went slowly. He didn't want to meet another cannibal, never mind an American Auror.

Thinking about the Aurors made him pause - after seeing what had happened to that woman, he wouldn't wish that on anybody, not muggles and certainly not even his own fellow wizards. Harry was tempted to go back. He could do it, he could go to the Aurors while they were looking for him, and warn them -

No. The risk was just too great. It was likely the American Aurors had split up to cover more ground in the factory as they looked for the wizard who'd alerted them here in the first place - that was him - and they would probably be trigger (or wand happy, depending on your point of view) happy and they would probably not really care if he tried to warn them there was someone walking around capable of killing them and then eat their remains. Harry didn't need to know how wizards would feel about the idea of muggles eating them.

No, he would continue to leave. Besides, they were Aurors, they faced life and death every day - they should be able to handle the cannibal, and in any case from what he had seen the American Aurors encountered more problems than other Aurors. They should be fine.

He found the entrance and escaped to freedom.

* * *

The wizard, Aiden Hurricane, growled as the giggling muggle swung his axe around, almost catching him as he tried to protect his injured partner. Aiden and his partner, Sarah Hallow, had been partners for a long time. They had dealt with muggle baiters, muggles who had seen something they shouldn't do, even pranks by students who had decided to play games with the MACUSA.

But the MACUSA had never encountered anything like this, especially a muggle that was so deformed and clearly mad as this before. Aiden and Sarah had been walking down the corridor, trying to find the wizard who'd been using the spells, when they had heard a shuffling sound accompanied by chuckling. Then everything happened so fast. If it hadn't been for their sadistic instructor's training, they would have been killed by the axe the muggle was wielding. But the axe had gone into Sarah's shoulder, and now Aiden was trying to keep the muggle away from her. The bugger was fast - every single time Aiden tried to subdue him, the deformed freak would skit around, but the sick laughter hinted the muggle thought this was a game.

Aiden spared a quick glance while using his wand to banish the deformed thing away at Sarah. His partner was on the ground, all huddled up while pressing a hand to the wound, but Sarah still had her wand in her hand.

She was far from hopeless. Aiden was grateful for that, but that was not much consolation. The muggle threw the axe again, and Aiden growled. He was getting tired of this. He had been holding back, using basic defence spells to keep the muggle at bay, but he knew he couldn't keep this up much longer. Aiden knew there was only one way to deal with him. The MACUSA's Aurors, unlike others across the Earth, were authorised to use the killing curse, but only under specific circumstances.

Aiden believed this qualified.

When he reached that decision, the Auror fired a number of high powered spells - when he and the rest of the detachment had split up to search this hovel, they had been ordered not to use anything but low powered spells otherwise they would disturb the sweeps to track down the wizard lurking about here, but right now he didn't care, not with his partner lying on the ground with an open wound. The deformed freak jumped aside to avoid getting hit by the spells, still laughing that disgusting laugh, but a spell fired from Sarah's wand caught him in the leg, snapping it with a loud snap, and made him drop onto the hard ground. That gave Aiden the chance he needed.

"Avada Kedavra!" Aiden shouted when the muggle was distracted and the killing curse struck him in the chest.

The muggle's head had just hit the ground when the sound of feet rushing towards them made both Sarah and Aiden look up and they caught sight of their colleagues.

"What happened?" One of them asked before catching sight of Sarah's injury and the dead body.

"We told you not to use high powered spells," an Auror who hadn't seen Sarah, never mind the body, was saying as he approached, but when he did and the deformed features of the muggle were shown in the light, he back-pedalled "What happened?"

Aiden gave him a sarcastic sneer. "What do you think?"

Sarah was being helped up by two others. "He came out of nowhere, we'd heard him approach but then he swung that axe….caught me in the shoulder. Aiden kept him away from me."

Aiden looked at one of the Aurors, a witch with her long dark blonde hair pulled into a severe plait. "What have you found? We found nothing but junk, cars packed into one room, torn off clothes….," she reported, but she was interrupted by another approaching Auror, who looked very grim.

"And we've found two bodies of muggles as deformed as this one, and the remains of a Muggle woman who'd been chopped up into little pieces," he said. "In the same room we found the remains of two people who'd been caught by separate exploding curses, one of them looked like they'd been cooked by something hotter than an ordinary fire spell; more like a fire vortex, less powerful than fiendfyre."

Sarah shook her head to regain some of her focus, she wondered if she was experiencing acute blood loss. "Sounds like one heck of a fight," she commented.

"Yeah, but started it?" Someone asked, but the senior Auror shrugged. "We'll have to grab an investigating team, bring reinforcements with orders to cast to kill so then if we encounter muggles like this," he gestured to the warped corpse on the ground, "we won't have to deal with them for long."

Sarah looked down at the corpse, remembering the look in the creatures' savage eyes. "I've never seen a muggle like this before," she commented, "he was like…. some feral animal, and when he went for me he treated it like a game."

"He was laughing like a hyena," Aiden added.

"The other two were deformed," the senior Auror said, "like I told you a second ago. It's possible the wizard attacked them or was attacked in turn. Whatever they were doing here, they were responsible for deaths. It's not our problem, the muggles can deal with it, but there was a skeleton of a little girl in that same room, locked in a wire cage."

Sarah looked down with disgust at the dead body. "You know something, I've met many people who say we've taken Rappaport's law too far in some cases, but when I see and hear what muggles can do in some cases….," she shook her head, her mind swirling with the thought of muggle atrocities.

The senior Auror spoke to the others, giving orders to take care of the investigation, to get Sarah to a healer, all the while ignoring the inbred muggle at their feet.

* * *

What do you think?


	16. Chapter 16 The Last Dursley

I don't own Harry Potter, but please leave some feedback.

* * *

The Last Dursley.

Despite loving America and seeing the sights of the continent, Harry was glad to be back in Britain where the magical sensor net wasn't as finely tuned as it was in America, despite the country being vast enough to make it difficult for muggles to find wizards and witches practising their powers. After he had dealt with the cannibals in that remote, abandoned factory, and escaping the Aurors from the MACUSA, he had left on foot before finding a quiet corner and transforming into his raven form. He had flown away as fast as he could above the tree line and didn't transform back into his human form until he'd reached another town, but he'd had to avoid it because the locals weren't exactly friendly.

If he'd had the time and the inclination Harry would have burnt the town to the ground and wiped the muggles out, but he hadn't. He had been too close to the factory for comfort, and any more magic would have gotten him caught by the MACUSA. It simply wasn't worth it. After a long train ride, Harry had left America and travelled to Magical Japan and then later China, having to get himself a visitor's VISA which was straightforward to get his hands on.

In both cases, Harry didn't just study the magic of both countries, but he also made connections with the magical underworlds (as well as the muggle counterparts), and he had spent a couple of weeks in Japan and then China before heading back to the United Kingdom.

It would soon be time for him to return to Hogwarts, and he had didn't want to be late.

His mind busy processing the numerous Chinese and Japanese magical spells he had picked up, Harry walked through the streets of London under a heavy disguise as was his custom as he spent the day pickpocketing; he didn't really need to do this, not with the wealth of the Potter family, but he had spent his childhood on the streets learning these skills, and it would be a bad idea for him to throw them away. Something might happen in the future, something that separated him from the family fortune, and he would need to find a way to make a living.

Harry was still learning how to be an assassin, knowing it would be more lucrative than simply breaking into other people's homes and stealing money or other things to flog on the streets. But he was a long way from becoming a major expert.

While he had just taken the wallet of a passing tourist, Harry noticed something that he hadn't expected. Marge Dursley was out shopping herself. The woman hadn't changed much since the last time he'd seen her. She was still fat, grossly overweight with her face perpetually set in an expression which was a cross between a scowl and a sneer of distaste which was typical with the family since they saw themselves as better than everybody else, and flushed because of the amount of blood pumped into it, dressed in that ugly tweed suit that did nothing to stem her excessive sweating in the heat of the city.

Harry had always thought Marge Dursley was what Vernon would have become if he'd been born female, though truthfully one in both genders out of that fucked up family was enough. Harry followed Marge closely, he had gone out of his way to keep out of the filthy muggle bitch's way whenever she'd turned up for one of her (thankfully) brief visits to Privet Drive when he was growing up in that hovels cupboard under the stairs, but now her brother and his family were dead, he felt it would be a lovely gift from him for her to join Vernon and Petunia in hell.

He wondered what had changed in her life ever since her brother and his family had been murdered; he wouldn't be surprised if she had loudly blamed him for their murders.

Dursley logic for you.

But he knew it wasn't a problem anymore; the police would have given up on him by now, and even if they hadn't then they would have discovered the mess in the cupboard and wondered why nothing had happened sooner. They weren't stupid. He might not think much of the police, but he knew they would have searched the house once they found out about him and they'd have found no sign of the second bedroom Dudley had used to house his junk being used as a bedroom.

No, he knew he was safe from the muggle police, and even if he was arrested by them for something in the future, he would only have to maintain a disguise long enough to keep hidden and even if he didn't it wouldn't make any difference. The Muggle police would have realised that the person responsible for the deaths of Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley Dursley was an 'adult' not a child, and since the muggles didn't believe in the existence of magic then they wouldn't believe he had killed them with magic.

Thankful for his disguise, Harry followed the woman as she went into a couple of shops. Marge didn't notice him, she was too busy wrangling with the customer sales assistants working in the various shops, telling them their prices were too excessive - Harry wasn't surprised by the clear disdain some of the younger, fitter, prettier girls showed behind facades of professionalism showed towards Marge, who didn't even bother hiding her disgust at the manner they were dressed in (Harry had always been bothered by that - the Dursleys had always believed the world revolved around them and their beliefs, but they always believed that people who weren't 'big boned' aka porky and obese were not 'proper sized' when to him people who were thin were real people, completely different) - before she left, completely oblivious to the fact she was being followed and that the sales assistants at the various shops were pleased to see the back of her.

Finally, Harry had the opportunity to cast a tracking spell on the woman before he left. The dog woman had the tracking charm on her, now all he had to do was track her down to her home.

* * *

Harry's animagus form was getting tired following Marge's car across the country, so he was relieved when the woman's car finally pulled into a road with a large field. Marge got out of the car, unaware of the raven circling overhead and went into the house. From the air, Harry could see the dog kennels, but the dogs were out rushing around in their pens, barking their heads off behind wire fences.

Harry had never been to Marge's home before, but if he had known where it was in the past then he would have killed her long before now once he had learnt how to survive on his own. Actually, he conceded, he wouldn't have done. He had had too many things to do with his time after he'd killed the Dursleys, such as surviving on the streets of a cruel city. But if he had known then he would have killed her before now.

What he did know about her home was it was used to breed dogs, and Marge had used the visits to compare him to dogs, saying his mother was responsible for delivering a mongrel into the world. Well, after tonight, the filthy muggle animal would learn her place in the universe.

The dogs were still barking at him, but the wizard paid them no heed since they weren't worth the effort but if they gave him any trouble later on then he would simply kill them.

A few minutes after Marge had closed the door, a dirty land rover coughed down the road towards the house. When it stopped, an old man got out, wearing a fairly shabby red military uniform and a black hat. Harry watched, frowning the raven equivalent of a frown, as the man walked up to the door and pressed the bell. A moment later Marge appeared, and he stepped inside. Harry realised who he was - Marge had often talked about a man called Colonel Fubster, or something like that. But Harry didn't really care about that.

Flying to the roof of Marge's house, Harry settled on the tiles and thought about what to do for a moment or two. He was tempted to just fly down to the door, and open it with magic and take the two muggles by surprise. He would kill the Colonel first, of course before he turned on Marge but Harry was not really sure if it was worth the trouble but he decided to just do it.

Decision made, Harry flew to the ground and transformed back into his human form. Looking quickly from left and right, he cast the unlocking spell on the door and slipped inside quietly before he re-locked the door again. The house was stinking which was a contrast because Marge's house looked as neat as the one Petunia had maintained. Or rather, Harry thought darkly, I maintained. He could hear the sound of voices coming from a room further on. Marge's house was dominated by a long corridor, with a stairway leading upwards and there were two closed doors to the side and one at the end of the passage.

Suddenly a dog rushed towards him, barking its head off madly. Harry felt a rush of fear he suppressed at once, recognising the dog as Marge's ill-tempered 'pet' Ripper. Dimly aware of two people coming out of the doorway to investigate the noise but paying them no attention, for the time being, Harry levelled his wand at the dog. "Avada Kedavra," he spat, wanting nothing more than to kill the dog. There was a flash of green light and the dog crashed down to the ground without a sound.

The two muggles at the other end let out a lot of noise, but Harry sent out a blast with his wand. "Shut your mouths," he spat. "You'll be joining the dog in a moment."

Marge's face, already purpled, darkened even more. "Ripper? Ripper, come here, boy!"

The word boy sent a rush of anger through his very being, but Harry suppressed it as he stood there, his wand in hand looking at the woman and the dog with dark amusement. "You're wasting time, Marge," he said silkily before he used his foot to gently lifted the dead body and then let it drop. The dog didn't move. "I killed him. The filthy mutt should've been put down when he attacked me."

"Attacked you? Never met you before in my life- Wait, I do know you, you look familiar."

Harry smirked. "You mean you don't recognise me? I'm not surprised, a few years on the streets would change….anyone. Oh, come, you stupid bitch! I was forced to call you Aunt Marge as if I'd ever have considered you and that fucking bitch Petunia an Aunt!"

Marge stiffened and then she shook with rage. "Boy!"

Harry chuckled. "Ah, still the same imaginative bitch, but I'm not surprised; your filthy family never had much imagination-."

"You disgusting boy!" Marge had become more worked up once she'd realised who he was, and she had come steadily out of her shock at seeing him here at her home, "What did you do to my brother and his hard-working family? I always said you should've been put in an orphanage!"

"What makes you think I don't agree with you? Fuck, I'm sure your pig of a brother would've wanted nothing more than to throw me off London Bridge, but he didn't. Do you want to know why? Because he, like his wife, knew they'd be angering the people that foisted me off them, and even Vernon Dursley wasn't stupid enough to do that! Do you want to know why your brother and your sister in law took me in? I can tell you, they were afraid!"

Harry pointed his wand at the obese muggle, keeping an eye on the man who had only just seemed to realise he was there. "You see, Marge, I'm a wizard. I can do magic, not the stupid tricks you see on television, but actual magic."

Marge laughed harshly with just a touch of hysteria. "You always were a freaky brat-!"

"CRUCIO!" Harry spat and he watched in delight as the woman writhed on the ground screaming in agony; ever since he had learnt about the Unforgivable cruses he had longed to put a few people under them - Malfoy, Snape, certain members of the Weasley family, but when he saw Marge he had longed to see her scream and writhe with pain.

Maybe now she would see what she had done to him.

The muggle man seemed to have come out of his stupor and rushed towards Harry, well he tried, but the man was so ancient and frail it was an achievement for him to cross the room, but even as he raised his walking stick to use as a weapon it was too late. Harry pointed the wand at him, the muggle barely seeing to realise it was there as he struggled to move before the dark version of a cutting curse slashed across his throat. The muggle dropped to the ground, gurgling as great founts of blood spurted out of the wound as he collapsed to the ground.

Harry looked between the two on the ground. Marge was just about recovering, but she was panting and shaking from the aftereffects of the torture curse. But he focused on the man. "I don't know if you believe in reincarnation, but let me give some advice; stay out of a wizard's affairs, you'll live longer."

Marge tried to get up, but Harry flicked his wand, a tripping jinx spoken non-verbally. He had learnt about silent casting from a book and he had practised it ever since. "Stay where you are, don't get up. I actually like you on the ground."

"You….disgusting….boy….. You should…..have been…!" Marge managed to get out as she struggled to get up.

"Drowned at birth because my mother was a mongrel bitch….yadda, yadda, yadda. Don't you have anything new to say to me, I mean it has been a long time?" Harry's voice was bored as he lifted a foot and pressed it down hard on Marge's throat. She was coughing while he spoke while he smirked down at her, delighting in his control over her.

"Especially since we have something in common, as much as I hate to admit it. We are the last of our families, though in your case it was simply me killing your brother and his family while my parents were murdered by another wizard."

Marge seemed to focus on one part of his statement to give her the strength while his foot held her down. "You….. killed Vernon, Petunia and Dudley?" she whispered.

Harry nodded down at her. "Yes. And before you give your usual spiel about how they were good hard-working people and they took me in, don't," he warned. "I've heard it before, and truthfully I'm no mood to hear you say it again because let me tell you one thing if you do I will draw out your death. I found out they'd been told to take me in or there would be reprisals. Do you want to know what I did?" he suddenly grinned sadistically down at Marge before he closed his eyes and concentrated.

Marge's eyes widened in horror. No, it had to be a mistake. She was seeing things, the freak was making her hallucinate.

The boy's face had disappeared with a pop, replacing it was a much larger head, wrinkled with age and with layers of fat beneath the skin with a head of neatly combed dark hair with a bushy moustache set into the reddened skin which held a tinge of purple just waiting to bloom.

It was the face of her brother, Vernon. But the head was on top of the thin, leather-clad body of the boy.

"Your brother and his family were weak," Vernon's voice spoke. "He was easy to kill, him and his fat lout of a son."

Vernons' face disappeared and it became Petunia's thin, horse-like head. "They didn't want me, they hated and feared me, but instead of trying to keep that fear under control, they believed beating me would keep me meek. I hated them," the boy said with Petunia's voice.

"For a man who liked using his strength against a kid," The boy had taken on Dudley's appearance, "and encouraged his own son to do the same, but when I transformed into a much larger man, he was as weak as I had been. So much for those stupid boxing championships that he boasted about for Duddykin's benefit, telling fat pig junior, he will one day be a great boxer himself since he practised his skills on me. Well fat pig junior won't be boxing anyone, not anymore …" the boy's face transformed again, and Marge's eyes widened in horror as the freak's head became identical to her own. "But the filthy muggles died, just as you are going to die, Marge."

Marge realised what the boy was doing, he was mocking her, taunting her.

"You know what, when I saw you today in London, I wondered what I was going to do with you," Harry went on as his features returned to normal, but to Marge's surprise there was massive circular scar around one of his eyes that made the one beneath that freaky but faded lightning bolt shaped scar give him a menacing look. "That's what I spent most of my time doing when I was following you, using the same ability you've just seen me use to disguise myself. I thought about killing you with the killing curse that ended dear Ripper's life," Marge felt her blood pressure race as the boy's voice became mocking and sardonic, but it sharpened. "Or should I just press down with my foot and crush your neck and save us both the trouble? Hmm, I just don't know. I can't let you live. But I think after tonight, you'll be begging me for death. That torture curse is known as an unforgivable curse, but there are other, milder spells that could hurt you. You and I have reached the end of our…. association, tonight it ends. You called me a mongrel, a worthless brat. Let's see what this worthless mongrel brat can do, eh you filthy, worthless, disgusting sack of shit?"

Marge felt her heart stop, and she began to scream as Harry lifted his wand.

Marge Dursley was dead, her face covered with welts and cuts, boils oozing truly painful curses. One of her arms was broken, twisted at an unnatural angle into a pretzel. Both her legs were broken, the kneecaps shattered. Her face was a mask of pain and horror while blood was still leaking from the deep slice in her throat and pooling around her body. The gurgling noises she had made as he'd slashed her throat to pieces, she had tried to curse him for everything he had done to her and her family, but the blood had made it difficult for him to make out her words.

Harry looked down at the body for a moment before he waved his wand thoughtfully over the body, muttering incantations to remove all but the bone breaking curses he had used to kill Marge before he walked away from the cooling corpse as he searched through the house. He had changed his technique since he had left Privet Drive all those years ago - Marge's home was fairly out of the way compared to the cramped neighbourhood he'd once lived in, and he didn't expect she was very popular to begin with so she wouldn't have many friends, so he had plenty of time to kill before he had to leave. He searched through the house looking for expensive jewellery, pieces of pottery he could flog, but more importantly money he could add to his bank account.

Harry wrinkled his nose in disgust as he walked into Marge's bedroom; the place reeked of booze, there were at least a dozen bottles of brandy, wine, and gin. He ignored the stench and carried on with his search of the bedroom, and found three rolls of used fivers that he stuffed into one of his pockets.

* * *

When Harry left the house he was slightly disappointed, making sure to keep the door open so whenever the next person to come to the house found it open, they would go inside and find the dead bodies; he would have thought Marge, after all her bragging and her arrogance would have had a little bit more, and while she had quite a bit of cash he wondered how much of it was actually in the bank. No matter, he thought to himself. He had done it; he had finally gotten his revenge on the Dursley family, ending it forever unless there were a few members out there he didn't know about, but who cared? One of his biggest tormenters had just died.

Harry sighed as he walked out of the house, greeted by the sounds of the dogs Marge had been breeding. He lifted his head and growled back at the stupid animals that were still barking their useless heads off at him, guessing they already knew what he'd done to the bitch (no dog pun intended) who owned them and to Ripper.

He eyed them for a few moments, wondering he to do with them. They were noisy, yes, but they weren't exactly a threat to him from behind the fence. He shrugged his shoulders, and walked away from them, their barks following him all the way as he left.

* * *

Next chapter is back to Hogwarts, where he encounters two very familiar, and annoying, idiots.


	17. Chapter 17 New Year, New Irritants

Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter.

New Year, New Irritants.

Harry looked over his school supplies - he had spent two whole days in Diagon Alley restocking his potion ingredients, his supplies of parchment and gotten the new Defence books along with the other books he intended to read when he got a bit of privacy - critically. All of his supplies and his spare uniforms were neatly arranged on his bed and he packed it all up.

After he had killed Marge and the muggle she'd been with he'd returned to London to sell everything he had stolen from her home and to buy the latest books from the Alley when he got his supply list, and then he had moved on to Manchester for the remaining days of summer. He was just packing the potions kit into his trunk when he suddenly chuckled at the neat idea that had entered his mind about returning to the castle.

But his smile disappeared as he picked up the glossy Lockhart books. He had read through a couple of them and found so many contradictions it wasn't funny, but for a supposed set of defence books, they were more geared to Lockhart's personal appearance. What was the point worrying about your hair or nails if they had a wonderful pedicure if you were fighting a werewolf?

Harry hadn't seen or met Gilderoy Lockhart, not in person at any rate, but there were quite a few photographs of the man - sure, he might look the part of a dashing hero, but Harry didn't think much of him since the books were just plain awful to read. In all of the books, the fashion theme was an integral part of the set, but either Lockhart was dabbling in time travel or he was a fake because in the werewolf book he was fighting the banshee. And on and on it went.

What he couldn't work out was what the new Defence professor was thinking putting these books on the list. It was probably some fan of Lockhart's, and he remembered cringing when he remembered buying the books from Flourish & Blotts and hearing the sighs coming from the witches who had become gooey brained and gooey eyed at the sight of Lockhart's face stamped on the front of each of the books.

That was the reason he had gone back for his second trip to the Alley - he had flicked through the pages of a couple of the books and had been disgusted and sickened by what he'd read (who cared if your fingernails were neat and tidy when you were fighting a bloody Yeti for heaven's sake?) and he'd gone back to the bookshops, even a few in Knockturn Alley and picked up a number of spell books that were far more to the point about defence.

Harry didn't care if the students at the school fucked up in their classes, but he would be damned if he would go down the same way. Armed with these books, and the knowledge he had gleaned from other magical communities, he was sure he would soon be a match for anyone. He checked the time - he would need to leave soon for Hogwarts.

Once the trunk was full, Harry flicked his wand and shrunk it down to the size of a matchbox and picked up his rucksack and slipped it over his travelling cloak before he stepped onto the balcony. He had purchased the flat a month before he had headed off for America. He had bought flats and townhouses in cities all across the UK, outfitting each and every one of them but keeping only the most essential elements. Closing the doors and locking them solid, Harry transformed into his raven form and took flight, heading in the direction of Hogwarts.

He had been on the move ever since the end of the last term, certain Dumbledore and his cronies were trying to track him down. The Hogwarts express was also a good place for them to wait for him to show up so then they could alert Dumbledore he was on his way back. In his raven form, Harry mentally cringed at his foolishness for revealing to Hagrid his metamorphic abilities. He didn't know if Dumbledore had told his followers he could change his form - Dumbledore didn't seem the type to tell anybody anything and give a straight answer to any question, but he couldn't be sure.

He'd never liked conspiracy theories.

He had encountered his fair share of people, young adults, teenagers who believed a government was hiding something, which they probably were, but they got themselves so worked up about them. Harry had sworn never ever to be anything like those morons, but every time he had tried to work out what was driving Dumbledore's decisions, he wondered if he was putting too much thought into them before he became so bored and tired he decided to concentrate on the flight ahead.

Harry was relieved that he had chosen to leave from Manchester instead of London for Hogwarts, it was a long way from both King's Cross and Hogsmeade stations. He hadn't seen the point in wasting time in travelling from Manchester to London only to head back up North. But Manchester was closer to Hogwarts than London was, and he had timed the trip as well as he could.

If he had timed it right he would be arriving at the castle around the time the express had, but even if the train didn't pull into Hogsmeade, he could still sneak into the village a full year before third-year students were allowed to go. He didn't really care about the privilege to visit the place but it would be nice to see it once or twice in his lifetime.

Harry also didn't really care if he was late to the castle or on time. If he could sneak into Hogwarts without being seen and make it to the great hall without Filch or Snape interfering, then he would get away with it. Occasionally on the way, he would stop and take a bearing to make sure he was going the right way. He had found a nifty spell to help him. It worked by homing in on the castle. But as he flew all the way to the school, he began to wish he had travelled to London for a couple more days and just followed the train via its line all the way to Hogwarts.

There were times he was sure the spell would simply not work.

But he was relieved as he flew over a great stone viaduct and spotted the Hogwart's express itself steaming towards the castle. It was getting dark. Harry cawed the raven version of a laugh, wondering just how many students had tried to find him this time and failed. He wondered if it would occur to them he wasn't on the train, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it though it made no difference to him one way or another.

Because he was smaller and lighter than the train, and because he was flying, Harry arrived at the station before the express. He found a quiet corner and transformed back into his human form.

The moment he returned to his original form, Harry took a deep breath and performed a few quick stretches he'd picked up over the years as he tried to re-shake his limbs into being a pair of arms and legs instead of wings and small feet. He was still performing a few exercises when the train pulled in.

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Harry had to hide his smirk as he followed the other second through to seventh-year students into the castle. His plan had worked or seemed to have worked so far, but he wouldn't know for sure if he'd gotten away with it unless no-one bothered to ask him where he'd been on the train.

He scanned the staff table and instantly spotted someone whom he hadn't expected.

Gilderoy Lockhart was sitting at the table, talking the ears off a couple of professors who looked like they wanted to be anywhere but where they were. Their attitudes to the man's presence were anything but encouraging.

But Harry had to laugh at the oblivious and stupid way the witches in the hall behaved, looking at Lockhart and smiling at the man dreamily. Harry followed their gazes and wondered if he were a girl if he would be acting in the same way. Lockhart had wavy golden hair, dressed in robes of deep gold that, when combined with his hair, made him look like a walking piece of gold.

Harry sat down at the Gryffindor table and did his best to avoid looking at the man. He wasn't sure why but Lockhart just annoyed him. Now he knew why the books were on the list - Lockhart was so egotistical it was staggering.

Harry didn't really pay much attention to the announcements that came out of Dumbledore's mouth, and when it came to following the other Gryffindors up to the dormitory, wondering if his hopes for a year at the school where the teachers knew their jobs and whether they'd be stupid were realistic or not.

"Hey, Harry, mate, I didn't see you on the train. Where were you?" Weasley asked.

"I was in a different compartment, and I thought I told you that we are not friends and never will be friends," Harry replied before he decided to put a compulsion charm on the redheaded moron and making him stay away from him. It might not work since Granger would be with him, and she'd be smart enough to notice the difference in the fool a mile off.

"Oh, don't be like that Harry," Weasley went on, standing up from his bed. Harry wondered whether the redhead was part giant because nearly every time he saw him the guy seemed to have shot up another 5 inches. "We're best mates. Everyone knows that."

Harry rolled his eyes and turned back to his bed. What everybody knew and what was actually, in reality, were two completely different things. He had spent nearly the whole of last year telling everyone the only thing he felt for Ron Weasley and the rest of his clan was contempt. But as physics said, for every action, there was an equal and opposite reaction; Weasley had told everyone who cared to listen he was friends with Harry Potter, and that Harry Potter didn't want to know anybody.

Well, that final part was true, but the arrogant presumption annoyed Harry no end. He didn't like it when others decided to poke their noses in his life as if they had the right to do so.

Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had not been on his mind much during the summer. He had been more interested in his own affairs travelling the world, but he had learnt quite a few things so if they tried anything stupid he'd be ready for them.

But for the time being Harry decided to be difficult with Weasley. "Believe what you want, Weasley," Harry replied, "I won't spoil your fun. Just stay away from me this year. I want a nice quiet year, okay?" Weasley opened his mouth to say something, but Harry had turned around. He was holding his wand and had pointed the tip directly at Weasley's heart. "Stay away Weasley; the gloves are off. Last year I was willing to let you and that moron Granger follow me about, trying to learn more about me, but those days are over. Follow me, and I swear you will regret it."

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

The next day Harry was sitting at the Gryffindor house table, chewing some blueberry pancakes with some water - the kitchens at the school were prohibited for some inane reason from supplying different kinds of fruit juices. All they sent up was pumpkin juice, something Harry had developed a keen dislike for.

As was his custom the day had started normally - he had woken up before any of his dorm mates thanks to long experience and had gone to the part of the castle where he had taken over, and had begun jogging for a few hours to keep his fitness up before he had returned for a shower, and then he'd come down to the hall to get his new timetable.

When all the students were in the hall and chattering like mad, Harry just ignored them and focused on the book in front of him. It was an old Charles Dickens novel, Oliver Twist which was appropriate given the circumstances, that he'd managed to find in a charity shop. He had already cast a spell to stop anybody but himself from picking it up. He knew that Snape, being the sour bastard he was, wouldn't hesitate to take the book and give some bullshit excuse.

Harry had just reached a good part of the novel when a flash of light accompanied by a chirpy voice which annoyed him especially this early in the morning nearly blinded him.

"Hi, Harry!"

Harry blinked rapidly at the small form in front of him and found himself looking at a boy with a mop of mousy blonde hair holding a camera in front of him.

"Uh…hi. Why did you do that?" Harry asked.

"I'm Colin. Colin Creevey," the boy, Colin, said excitedly, either not registering the question or he was too excited to care. "I'm a first year Gryffindor."

"Yes, I can see that," Harry muttered darkly as he took in the boy's appearance. "But why are you taking photographs of me? I never said you could."

Colin was a little bit thrown off by Harry's reply, and he tried his best to explain himself. "I'm a muggle-born. The professor who came to my house showed me and my parents all this cool stuff about the wizarding world, and I'm taking photos to show my parents; I heard that if you soak the film in the right potion, the pictures will move! Isn't this place fantastic-?"

"Yeah, it is, and I can understand why you'd want to show your parents about the magical world, but why take photographs of me?" Harry interrupted when he realised the kid was getting a bit too overexcited.

"You're the Boy-Who-lived," the first year boy said excitedly, not realising he had just killed what little chance there was of Harry paying any attention to him with that simple reply. "I can't wait to send my parents a photo of you, the boy who saved the magical world as a baby-."

Harry had been growing steadily annoyed by the boy as each word popped out of his mouth. "Stop right there," he snapped. "Do your parents even know about me, or did you just hear about me and decided to take a photograph of me, and only me and no one else?"

Visibly shaken by the anger in his 'hero's' voice, the boy stuttered a bit. Harry mentally sneered at the kid's inability to take a harsh word. He was clearly like Granger, still stuck in Primary school mode. That wouldn't give him any favours.

"You decided to just take a photo of me, right? Your parents don't know the first thing about me, do they?" Harry pressed on.

"N-no," the kid replied.

Harry sighed and tried putting on a more kindly demeanour. "Listen, kid," he said, "I'm not trying to be nasty, but do you actually want your parents to know you are taking pictures of someone who is famous because he lost his parents? Or maybe I should write to them because let me tell you one thing; if any kid of mine took photographs of someone everyone placed on a pedestal 'cause they lost their parents, I'd fucking slap 'em across the head to re-set their brain."

Colin back stepped, making Harry roll his eyes. It was typical. He had long since begun to guess muggle-born witches and wizards lost some of their brainpower after being introduced to the magical world for the first time, but he had always assumed it took a while, but clearly not. "It seems you don't," Harry whispered in pity.

Harry took a deep breath, about to tell the boy to take photographs of other things at the school like the Quidditch matches, things like that but to leave him alone, but then his second annoyance arrived and his chance was dashed away.

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Gilderoy Lockhart was a terrible wizard and he knew that deep down, but his natural arrogance had told him he was exceptional. After all, he had achieved what he had set out to achieve in life - he had accolades, wealth and fame. Best of all he was now the DADA teacher at Hogwarts, but while he'd boasted about his skills, inwardly he was out of his depth. That was not a problem for him since there were three things he could do - first, he could finally be near the famous Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter, secondly he could boost his fame by having people study his work for as long as possible, and finally he would be close to all the female attention from the students at the school.

Like many wizards and witches raised born in Britain he had attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and had been sorted into Slytherin house where he had studied for seven years.

His mother, who had married a Muggle man, had already had two elder daughters, who were both squibs, making him the only wizard in the family. But Gilderoy's vanity had grown because he was something his elder prissy sisters wasn't. The only subjects he had been able to work with had been charms, potions and herbology - hardly the subjects an amateur Auror would be expected to work with, and when the electives came up he had chosen to go into Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, and Care of magical creatures because while there was wand work there wasn't a lot.

There were pros and cons to being a Slytherin and not a very magically competent one either. For a start, Lockhart spent a great deal of his time boasting about his abilities, but when it came to demonstrating his abilities he would either bluster out some excuse that made his tormentors mock him even more, or he would be pushed into the spotlight and forced to make good on his promises.

When he couldn't the mocking grew worse and there was nothing extraordinary about Herbology, but he had been good enough with certain spells though he hadn't been able to master anything truly complicated. In his other subjects, he was alright but no more than that, so he was able to stay at the school.

But despite his schoolboy exploits, like where he had sent himself a hundred valentines cards during breakfasts (something his Slytherin peers had mocked him for because it was a muggle tradition and not a magical one), Lockhart had something most Slytherins in the modern age lacked, a cunning imagination. He had always wanted to be famous and legendary, he had always wanted to silence the fools who had decried him for years, but the problem was he wasn't sure how to go about the best way to fulfil his dreams to one day become as wealthy and recognised as Albus Dumbledore himself. It wasn't until he had learnt two key charms, the memory charm and the compulsion charm and that he had a natural aptitude with both that Gilderoy finally had a starter for his desire for fame and fortune.

One of his original ideas was simply to take the two spells and use them to rob people and gain fame that way, but he had decided to bide his time and wait for something better to turn up. But he had tried it nonetheless; he had used a few compulsion charms on a few students, and made them give him a few coins, but not enough to attract attention. Lockhart wasn't stupid - he knew if he went too mad he'd be exposed, and he would be expelled from the school and even locked away in Azkaban after the DMLE were finished with him. He had covered his tracks and while he had certainly enjoyed what he had done, he had felt his early efforts were a bit crude for his liking. He had preferred it when he did something big on a massive scale like he had when he'd sent up his name during a Quidditch match. He had loved the attention then, even if he had gotten a long detention out of it.

It wasn't until he had overheard a couple of Slytherin students whispering about a newspaper journalist writing whatever she wanted about people that he had an idea of what to do. Lockhart had spent a great deal of his time cotton-picking some ideas about how to handle it. He had no intention of being a news reporter since he didn't like the idea of working for other people, and after he read some of Rita Skeeter's articles which he found too much, he realised he didn't really care for the journalistic life. He would have to do interviews for celebrities, and besides, while he found a kindred spirit in Rita Skeeter, he thought the older witch to be too obvious about her desire for self-recognition.

No, if he was to be famous he would need to find a way to do it without leaving a trail.

If she were a Slytherin then she didn't really have that much in the way of cunning, though Gilderoy was nonetheless curious about how she was able to write some of her stories in the first place. Many of them seemed to have been written at times where she couldn't interview anybody.

And then it struck him when he read another article in another magical magazine, about a witch who had performed a great feat in stopping a pack of werewolves from destroying a village. There was nothing out of the ordinary about that; while he knew of werewolves who just wished to be left alone, there were some packs who decided to satiate their hunger for flesh and blood.

But reading that article and whatever Rita Skeeter came out with and his natural flair with compulsion and memory charms gave him his calling. It was hard for him to find an opportunity, so he began by experimenting. He would either steal a cat or an owl, mundane things like that and manipulate the memories of someone else while he reaped the benefits. He did this to get used to his new idea and develop a new set of skills from that, but it was also to advertise to everybody that he was willing and able to help the little guy and it helped start his path to fame while all the time covering his tracks and using memory charms on any witness.

The first time Lockhart conned anyone into thinking he was a good guy he made the mistake of leaving someone slumped against a wall in Hogsmeade. At the time Lockhart had believed the man to be too drunk to take any notice, but he had been wrong. It took him a week to find the man and erase his memory so well that Lockhart doubted the man could even remember his name.

Travelling the world after he had earned enough cash (and stolen some along the way), Gilderoy was finally away from the DMLE's sensor net. None of the countries he travelled to seemed to care when one of their own people encountered either a banshee or a ghoul. If there was one thing Lockhart noted on his travels while he was meeting witches and wizards his searches had turned up who had performed feats that an average Auror wouldn't have a problem with, it was they had a different level of education to what he had encountered and experienced at Hogwarts.

But he was not interested but he also lacked the imagination to bring it back to Hogwarts when Dumbledore had offered him the teaching post, though he had learnt a few things on his travels. Lockhart had been reluctant at first - the DADA position was well known to be cursed with teachers barely lasting a year before something horrible happened to them. He wasn't stupid and he was also pleased he had learnt occlumency during his time outside Hogwarts since he had come to suspect Dumbledore was capable of reading minds.

But Lockhart had quickly seen the benefits of taking the position on since Harry Potter was attending Hogwarts and if everyone realised he, the great Gilderoy Lockhart, taught the Boy-Who-Lived, then fantastic. Who knows, he thought to himself as he came into the Great Hall and caught sight of the boy in question speaking to a smaller boy holding a camera, maybe I can re-model him into becoming like me, handsome and great?

He strode towards the two boys.

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

"What's this, what's this?" Harry bit back the urge to groan as the flamboyant form of Gilderoy Lockhart strode towards him and Colin. He was thinking fuck off but there was no such luck. The moron stood near him and Colin with a stupid grin plastered across his face. Harry was aware of the stupid sighs coming from the nearby witches and wondered what it was about this ponce that made them so moronic.

"Are you giving out photographs, Harry my lad? Jolly good! A photograph of yourself will go a long way to boosting your public image, many people across the country have spent the past ten years wishing they had a photograph on their walls or in a collection, well now you've got a fantastic opportunity-," Lockhart was saying, looking around the hall, completely unaware Harry had used the opportunity to slip away unseen via a notice-me-not spell and head for a different part of the table to get away from Colin Creevey and Lockhart before he let out a sigh of relief. Lockhart was seen as pretty foolish because after three minutes he realised his quarry was missing, and the stupid way he looked up and down the table for him before he gave up made him look even more stupid.

Harry grabbed some extra food and carried on eating, all the time he hoped that whatever happened to Lockhart when the curse on the defence position kicked in was humiliating and painful. He also had a feeling Colin wasn't going to leave him alone, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Author's notes - I know I've written Lockhart differently - the basic idea behind him is a stupid fraud, but while this version of Lockhart is definitely stupid he does have some cunning underneath his facade, and as an old friend and I debated he had to be a Slytherin because he was ambitious and willing enough to use Memory charms on others while stealing their secrets. You need cunning, ambition and imagination to become a con-artist.


	18. Chapter 18 Seeing the truth

I'm going to be doing a series of time-skips - the third year is meaningless as far as I'm concerned, and there will only be a single chapter about that. I'm not rewriting the entire year.

The fourth Year is when things change.

In the meantime, enjoy.

Also, in reply to a Guest review - I update when I can, I have other stories to focus on.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Seeing the Truth.

Aching from head to toe as he knelt on the cold stone floor, covered in blood and bits from the basilisk, listening with half an ear to Ginny Weasley as the stupid girl babbled about how Tom Riddle had made her do everything she had done for the past year, Harry couldn't help but look down at the remains of the diary Riddle had used to possess the girl. There was a massive hole in it from where Harry had stabbed it. Both the diary and the Basilisk both looked like they'd blasted into oblivion.

He had used his skills in transfiguration to change his knife into a machete. In the end, he'd used an overpowered exploding curse fired into the mouth of the creature after swiping the machete into its mouth, and cutting off a piece of fang, which he then drove into the diary Riddle had used to possess this stupid redhead girl. It sounded easy, but the Basilisk, being a massive snake had a flexible body, it was able to thrash around. Harry had very nearly been thrown off before driving the machete into the snake's head. He had transfigured the metal to be incredibly strong, but in its death throes, the snake had succeeded in throwing him off. The machete was still in the snake's head.

Another Horcrux down. But then his eyes flicked over to the Basilisk. It had taken him a while to find out what the monster of Slytherin was, but when he'd had it all made sense. The hard part was protecting his eyes, but he managed to take his old glasses out of his trunk before coming down here and transfigured them into sunglasses. The dim lighting and the darkness of the shades had helped him resist the killing gaze, though he hadn't really expected it to work.

Harry hadn't bothered telling a teacher - all of them had joined the students in wasting their time calling him the Heir of Slytherin - their lack of common sense and intelligence beggared belief, did they really think that if he had spent nearly a year petrifying students then he'd be so stupid to point the finger towards himself?! Harry closed his eyes and tried to gather his energy which he'd expended against Riddle's basilisk.

"H-Harry?" Ginny whispered, scared.

Harry sighed and looked the girl in the face. A part of him felt sorry for what had happened to her, but her endless chattering was grating on his nerves. "Give me a minute," he whispered, closing his eyes and mustering the energy to get back on his feet. He opened his eyes and focused on Ginny's frightened face. He idly wondered what she was looking at, but he got his answer. "H-Harry, where did you get that scar around your eye?" she whispered in horror.

Alarmed Harry gently stroked one of his fingers around his eye, and he felt the scar around his eye. He sighed and closed his eyes, realising that the stress of the fight with the basilisk had made him lose his concentration. He sighed again and wondered if he should actually go around with the scar on his face now, give everyone a visual reminder of what had happened to him when Dudley attacked him.

"I thought you didn't have a scar around your eye," Ginny said, unaware of his thoughts.

The stress of the last hour coupled with the anger he'd had burning within him as the entire school hounded him when all he wanted was a quiet life of plundering and reading and working with art suddenly snapped. "Well, I do," Harry snapped, making the girl flinch with the force of his anger, but he wasn't going to apologise. "I got this when I was living on the streets, someone stabbed me with a broken bottle."

Ginny looked at him in shock and horror, clearly wondering how anyone could do such a thing to the Boy-Who-lived. Harry had learnt the girl had a crush on him, that was not difficult to work out, but it was clear she loved the Boy-Who-Lived, not him. Harry wasn't bothered - he didn't think he really wanted to marry anybody, but that could change at any point. Harry didn't know he could marry anybody but he knew he would never marry this girl. While she wasn't ugly, he didn't think he could cope with a fame-obsessed fan-girl.

Harry suddenly groaned as he decided to get up off the ground, the stone was cold and slimy, and it was hurting his knees. "We haven't got time for this," he said, "we need to go."

Leaving the giant serpent with the machete buried in its skull, Harry stood up. Ginny quickly followed, and together they left the Chamber of Secrets; it had been incredibly hard to find the chamber without many clues before he'd wandered into the girl's bathroom and found that etching of the snake on one of the taps. Strangely enough, Harry had found an unexpected 'friendship' in the ghost of Myrtle. Like him, Myrtle was an outsider, even in death.

Maybe that was why they got along famously.

"Why did someone attack you like that?"

Harry was startled out of his musings by Ginny Weasley's curious question, and he half turned to face her. The redhead was looking at him curiously, but there was a hint of fear in her eyes. Harry wondered if it was because she was afraid of his anger - he hadn't reacted well when he'd learnt the scar had become visible - or if there was another reason that he simply couldn't be bothered working out now. He wasn't sure if she was afraid of him or learning that her 'hero' had suffered.

He didn't care, either.

But on the other hand, he didn't see any reason not to reply. What would this kid do? The more he thought about it, he realised he no longer cared if the entire magical world saw the scar or not. Why shouldn't they see what their 'beloved saviour' had gone through? The real problem was Hagrid had told Dumbledore the white lie that the Dursleys had been murdered by somebody else. It was likely if Dumbledore thought about it then perhaps he'd think that he, Harry, had been the one to murder the family in cold blood.

Then again, maybe he'd investigate the murders and realise that the Dursleys were killed by someone much larger, but the old wizard knew of his metamorphic abilities. It wouldn't be difficult for him to put two and two together.

Harry licked his lips and put on a 'sad' facade - who knows, perhaps it would work? - and said, "On the streets, you learn how to survive. I got it early on after I saw a big guy leave the house after he'd murdered my relatives."

He felt nothing about lying to this girl.

The girl looked at him with pity in her eyes while he stood there, and then he let out a choked gasp as the girl hugged him tightly. Harry stiffened, resisting the urge to slap the girl away, but he wrapped his arms hesitantly around her and patted her back awkwardly before the little girl let him go.

God, were all witches and wizards this gullible?

"Come on, we need to get out of here," Harry said.

"H-how?"

"Through the front door," Harry replied with a smirk as he half turned.

Ginny shivered. She had longed to meet the Boy-Who-lived, become his girlfriend and then his wife before she planned to have him killed so she could take his money so she could keep it all to herself and her kids - there was no chance she would give it to her family; Bill and Charlie were both old enough to make their own cash, Percy would likely become a pencil pusher at the Ministry, and the twins would be likely to find some other way to make cash to start their joke shop business. They weren't stupid like Ron, who would probably be lumbered with mum and dad for the rest of his natural, worthless life.

Her family didn't need the cash, and she didn't really care about her parents.

Ginny didn't plan on giving her cash to her parents - while she loved them, the girl was incredibly selfish when it came to money. And besides, if her parents wanted money then perhaps dad should stop obsessing about muggles, get a proper job as a proper pureblood would have done, and mum should get a job instead of becoming a lowly house-wife.

Ginny had never had any regret or concerns about her plans. Until that very second. There was something sinister about the way Harry Potter was standing there, his body half-turned, showing that scar in the dim lighting of the Chamber of Secrets, smirking at her that very moment.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Harry was glad he had realised when he had seen the 'slide' leading up to Myrtle's bathroom that a wizard as renowned as Slytherin wasn't likely to just have a slide no matter how fast it was, and so when he'd said 'stairs' a spiral of strong rocks had moved out of the walls of the slide to lead down into the chamber.

When he reached the top Harry was physically tired and he realised that in the future he should look into developing his fitness a bit more, but the journey to the hospital wing was done in silence though Harry had stopped to quickly chat with Myrtle while he caught his breath after that long climb. Once he was finished with Myrtle, Harry took Ginny up to the Hospital Wing. With each step he took, his body ached, but he pushed the pain away as he walked along in silence. Ginny had thankfully stopped sobbing about the prospect of being expelled, now she was sniffling. Harry found the girl rather pitiful.

And boring.

Before they'd left the room, Harry had made a show of waving his wand around his eyes, pretending to cast a glamour spell around the injury while using his metamorphic abilities to hide it, telling Ginny not to say a word. He knew he was battering her 'faith and love' in the 'fabled' Boy-Who-Lived, but he didn't care. The little tart deserved it after what she had done. He didn't want anyone to see the scars around his eye, and he didn't want anyone other than Dumbledore to know he could change his appearance at will, especially when he had been using his metamorphic skills to disguise himself from the rest of the school when they began their witch hunt (no magic pun intended) after they discovered he could speak to snakes. It was too handy an ability to have, and he wasn't going to let others know he could do it in case he had problems here again and needed it to keep himself sane and alive.

The walk up to the Hospital Wing was silent, either because Ginny had tried to speak to him but he'd been too focused on his own thoughts to pay attention to her, or she was too worried to speak to him, Harry didn't know and frankly didn't care. He wasn't going to comfort this girl. He didn't care if she was expelled; he felt sorry for her, but he wasn't going to waste his breath trying to comfort her when he himself was unsure about what could happen to her. He didn't know if Dumbledore would expel her for what had happened, but he doubted it; Dumbledore was too soft and besides, even when he told the old wizard what had happened in the Chamber, he knew Dumbledore would keep it a secret and just say the monster was defeated without going into too much detail.

Harry was okay with that. He didn't want to have anyone push and prod him after this, especially with the year he had just had. The journey to the Hospital Wing was eerily silent as though the school itself was judging them for their actions. He only hoped when he did arrive he could get a good nights rest.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

A matter of hours later, Harry woke up slowly, letting his senses take everything in as was his habit before opening his eyes when he realised it was all-clear, then he sat up in bed. He was in the Hospital Wing, and its white sterility was so different from the rest of the school. Once he was sure he was on his own, he lay back down again when he realised it was still dark outside. Harry was still exhausted after his fight with Riddle and the basilisk. He was just relieved to have come out of that fight with his skin intact.

He was also tired after speaking to Dumbledore about the chamber, he had given an abbreviated account of what happened down there. Plus he had needed to avoid Molly Weasley, who had tried to crush him to death - no way was he about to let that fat, greedy bitch anywhere near him.

It had been a hard year, though at first, it had been relatively easy. Granger and Weasley were still pains in the backside, Malfoy was just an inconvenience for him to ignore since the blond was barely worth the mental energy to worry about, but they were joined by Professor Lockhart.

Why that flamboyant moron so wanted to be around him, Harry had no idea. When the attacks had started up, Harry had been as baffled as everyone else when Mrs Norris had been attacked. Filch had been inconsolable, and anyone passing the corridor when his mangy cat had been petrified were the ones who suffered for it. Harry had been eating with the House-elves as was his custom, but he had joined the other students on their way back to their common rooms after the meal.

After the disastrous Quidditch game where he was pursued by a rogue Bludger which had broken his arm, Harry had met the House-elf known as Dobby. Harry frowned as he thought about the pathetic little creature who was trying to 'protect' him and send him home away from Hogwarts.

Harry would have been flattered if the little creature hadn't tried to kill him. He had tried to tell Dobby that if he wanted to protect him, he would not send anything travelling at high speeds to his head, unfortunately, the House-elf looked like he was an inch away from insanity considering the injuries he'd taken along the way.

Who on Earth were his masters? They must have been sadistic and cruel if they treated a House-elf that badly, even encouraging the poor thing to burn his hands and beat himself up. In some ways, Dobby reminded Harry of the person he could have been at the Dursleys whenever the muggles pushed him too far.

But the more time passed, the more Harry was convinced Dobby was onto something with how dangerous Hogwarts was becoming though there was no chance at all of himself leaving with a broken neck. After a few more attacks where the victims were found petrified, the suspicion of who the mysterious 'Heir of Slytherin' was thrown onto Harry when he had stupidly revealed he could speak to snakes. He had been warned not to speak to snakes by the man who had crafted his wand, but Malfoy had used the disarming spell to get rid of his wand when he'd tried to use it to vanish the angry snake which had been pissed off by Lockhart (why that man couldn't fuck off and leave him alone, he didn't know) who'd interfered, but all the fool had done was make the snake even angrier, so he had needed to resort to Parseltongue.

Dumbledore had believed him when he had said he wasn't responsible for the attacks, but the old wizard didn't do anything about it. The teachers had managed to mitigate the worst of the students pranks and attacks on him, and he had been an inch away from resigning from the Quidditch team because the Weasel twins had become vicious during the practice sessions, sending the Bludgers towards him with more vigour than normal, so they believed he was evil because he could speak to snakes.

Speaking of the Weasels, every cloud had a silver lining; Ron Weasley was so predictable when it came to his opinions on magic and light and dark magic in general. He instantly forgot about whatever plans he and his fucked up family had, and he had begun stalking Harry along with Granger, to 'catch the evil dark wizard out,' only Harry had managed to keep a few steps ahead of the morons.

Thinking about the Weasley moron and the bushy-haired bimbo made Harry groan mentally. He had a feeling that those two would 'forget' about what they'd tried to do this year and go back to their old plan of trying to be his friends. He sighed at the thought of never being able to get any peace and quiet so he could do his own things. They had very nearly found the classroom he'd converted once, and he wasn't keen on them invading his privacy.

Harry was overjoyed when he left the Wing a few hours earlier after getting a bit more kip, but his happiness ended when he entered the Great Hall - he was beginning to think he should always eat in the kitchens, anything to avoid the moronic students in the school and the idiot teachers.

The moment he walked into the hall, the chatting died down. Harry sighed as he took a seat at the end of the Gryffindor table - he hadn't sat with the others in his so-called house for a while, but now he was beginning to regret his decision to come to this room.

"Tell us what happened, Harry."

"Did you really see the monster of Slytherin?"

Harry did his best to tune them out as he loaded his plate with meat and vegetables, wishing they served water instead of pumpkin juice. He did his level best to tune out the demands from the others about what happened in the Chamber of Secrets, but their loud voices drove him mad.

"No," he said at last.

Unfortunately, Draco Malfoy called him a coward, but since his high pitched grating voice was drowned out by other protests, Harry couldn't tell what the little bastard was saying.

He didn't like being called a coward. In the end he stood up, taking his wand out of his pocket as he did so (his custom wand - he no longer cared if Dumbledore found out about the fact he had two wands instead of the conventional one, and besides he didn't know if the wand he'd purchased under Hagrid's supervision would work with this kind of spell), and he pointed the tip up to his temple.

Dumbledore stood up, realising what was planning to do, but Harry ignored him as he mumbled the spell. Ever since it was discovered he could speak to snakes and had been catapulted to prime suspect of who the Heir of Slytherin was (how these geniuses had come to that conclusion was simply beyond him; surely if he was trying to murder people who had been born outside the magical world, he would have wanted to keep his actions secret?) he had divided his time to avoid the others, getting to his lessons, heading off to the classroom he'd customised, and doing graffiti and art, and spending time in the library. The books in the library were irredeemably ancient, but one of them had a truly nifty spell that allowed wizards and witches to project their memories. Harry had taken the spell and had started experimenting with it, learning that he needed to relax in order to let the spell do its work.

Dumbledore became more insistent. "Harry! I must insist-!"

But Harry ignored him as he focused on the memory of the Chamber of Secrets. He showed them how he had investigated the attacks, and learnt from another book in the library that a basilisk had the power to kill people just by looking them straight into the eyes. At first, he'd be hard-pressed to believe it - sure, he had been hearing a voice all year, saying "Rip…..Let me kill," over and over again, and he realised it was speaking in parseltongue, giving him the inspiration to think that the reason no-one had connected the possibility it was a basilisk behind the attacks was because no-one had looked it directly into the eyes.

He showed them the memories of his realisation and his thoughts at the time - Mrs Norris had been looking into a patch of water on the floor when the basilisk attacked, Colin had taken a photo of it, seeing the creature through the camera, and the film had filtered out the worst of the gaze of the snake attacking him, whereas Justin had seen the basilisk through Nearly-Headless Nick, who had again absorbed and filtered the worst of the gaze of the snake out, reducing both of them into petrified forms.

Harry didn't know how Penelope Clearwater had survived, but he hadn't cared, but he was careful not to let that thought enter the memories - besides it was enough for the students to take in. He showed them how he had eavesdropped on the teachers - he had planned to take the information along with the realisation he had come up with about Moaning Myrtle (he showed them how he had needed to hide from some more haters from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, and the bathroom the ghost of the deceased Hogwarts student was the only place he could hide) was practically sitting on top of the entrance to the Chamber itself.

Unfortunately, he had gotten there at a truly bad time. The teachers had found a message that said 'Her Skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever' and that student was Ginny Weasley. Harry, not wanting to really get involved, decided to go to Lockhart to get the Defence teacher to finally earn his keep. Looking at the staff table he noticed that Lockhart wasn't there. Harry had no problems busting the bubbles of all the ditzy bimbos in the school who had fantasised and fawned over the fop, and he showed them the truth of their hero.

Harry had caught Lockhart in his office, packing. When Harry had got there, he had found the fop in the midst of taking all of the photos Lockhart had on his walls and packing them in his trunk.

"Going somewhere, Professor?" Memory Harry had asked him.

Lockhart had tried smiling at him, but it looked more like a weedy grimace. "Yes. Got a call. Awfully urgent. Got to go."

"There's a girl about to die, Professor," Memory Harry had said to him slowly, coldly as he'd stepped closer to the man with the grace of a dangerous cat, "you're supposed to be the Defence teacher, the man who boasts about his accomplishments every chance he fucking gets."

"Don't swear at me, Harry-," Lockhart had said, but Harry had ignored him and continued to speak.

"You're running away. Tell me something, Professor," Harry had said, saying the word professor like Lockhart had no right to the title, "did you actually do the things you say you did in those books, or are you just a con-artist? I've more or less made up my mind, since you're totally useless, but are you?"

Lockhart had looked surprised, but he had quickly tried to cover up his faux-pas, but it had been too late. "You are, aren't you? I've encountered con-men before, lots of times; the skill varies person to person, but a real con-man doesn't bring attention to himself the way you have. They stick to the shadows, you, you parade up and down, expecting people to look at you like you are the next Merlin, when you're nothing more than a fake!"

The girls around the hall looked horrified that their hero was a con-artist, but some of them didn't look convinced. Harry knew they were about to have a terrible wakeup call in a second, but he wasn't really happy about what was coming….

Lockhart had thrown his hands out as he looked imploringly at Harry. "My dear boy, try to use your common sense; my books wouldn't have sold as well."

Lockhart began talking about the people who had done the things he had 'done' - Harry hadn't said a word as he had let the fool condemn himself.

"Is there anything you can do?" Memory Harry had asked, cutting through Lockhart's little monologue, deciding he had condemned himself enough already, besides he had no time to listen to Lockhart say that the people he'd met who had done those things had either had awful dress sense or poor hygiene.

Lockhart's whole posture had changed when he'd asked the question, and Harry had realised that for all his moronic outward stupidity, Lockhart was still potentially dangerous.

"As a matter of fact, I do. I'm rather gifted with memory charms. Which is lucky otherwise all of those wizards would've blabbed. I can't let you go, Harry; I had hoped to covet you and use your fame to further my career, but unfortunately, you wouldn't give me the time of day…-," Harry had deliberately tuned him out, letting his eyes look around the office.

"What are you doing?"

"Why don't you disarm him?"

Harry ignored them, he had made a stupid decision at the time, but he had become so frustrated by Lockhart and he had a lot of anger to get rid of. His eyes picked out a lantern on a nearby table, and he'd slowly walked over to it while Lockhart's back was turned and he wrapped his hands around it…..

When Lockhart whipped around, wand outstretched, every witch and wizard in the hall instantly shouted the memory, guessing what Lockhart was about to do, but they were surprised by how quickly Harry moved.

The witches in the hall screamed when Harry swung the lantern in an arc, letting the heavy dark metal smacked Lockhart in the head, stunning the adult wizard, but Harry didn't let up. He smashed the lantern right on top of Lockhart's head, smashing the glass before grabbing the wizard's wand. The real Harry looked on, unaffected by Lockhart and the others reactions.

In the memory, Harry snapped the wand in front of Lockhart who looked both frightened and angry by what had happened to his wand. But the young wizard didn't give him a chance to do anything else. He grabbed Lockhart by the shoulders, hauling him up off his feet, seeing the adult was too stunned by what he'd done.

Harry had started to beat Lockhart up, delivering savage blows to the older man's face. Lockhart whimpered in agony as he tried to get away, but Harry wouldn't let up.

"You wizards," Harry had sneered, "how you lot survived without building your physical strength up is beyond my comprehension. You're weak."

To further emphasise the feeling of contempt, Harry had dropped Lockhart on the ground. The older wizard tried to escape, but Harry lifted his leg up and brought it right down on Lockhart's ankle, the scream that issued from the wizard's throat brought everyone's back up.

Harry leaned over the wizard. "If you ever try to wipe my memory, think about harming me, or basically sharing the same air as me, I will kill you," he had said, standing up and leaving the wizard.

The moment Snape had seen enough and heard enough, he instantly stood up. "Potter! Three hundred points from Gryffindor, I will see you expelled for this-!"

Harry ignored him and fast forwarded the memory to show the Chamber of Secrets - deciding that the fresh memory would shut the greasy professor up and divert any more attention from his actions. The change of scenery seemed to have worked, especially when the students caught sight of the statues in the shape of the heads of vipers complete with fork tongues and curved fangs.

Harry's general impression of the Chamber of Secrets hadn't changed in all of the hours it had been since he had seen the place for the first time; it was just a cave that Slytherin had converted. It was clear that while Slytherin could have just hollowed out the rock for his own purposes, he had found the caves and just adapted them for his own uses.

The students watched as the Harry in the memory walked slowly towards the form of Ginny Weasley, eyes scanning every corner. The Gryffindors were surprised; one of their own wasn't just running headlong into a situation to help one of their own, it made no sense. Dumbledore himself was as confused by the memory-Harry's actions, while McGonagall's lips pursed. Harry didn't notice the looks he was garnering from the teachers and students alike.

In the memory, Harry knelt down next to Ginny Weasley and getting touched her. "Weasley, wake up!" he hissed. "Come on, you stupid girl. Wake up!"

"She won't wake."

No-one in Hogwarts recognised the handsome teenager who was wearing Slytherin robes, but it didn't matter. Everyone watched as Harry and this wizard who introduced himself as Tom Riddle. Everyone was surprised when Harry said, "I don't know who you are, and I've spent the last two years memorising the faces of everyone in this school. You're wearing a slightly different uniform from what Ginny and I are wearing, and you look a bit less solid. Who are you?"

Riddle's smile instantly made many of the students shiver. "Have you not figured it out yet? Through Ginny Weasley, I was able to once more open the Chamber of Secrets. She wrote in my diary, and my diary allowed me to come back into the real world to finish the work Salazar Slytherin began centuries ago - to purge the school of the mudblood filth. She is the one who killed the roosters, making that brainless oaf Hagrid think a greedy bugbear had killed them. Ginny Weasley is the one who set the basilisk on the mudblood's and the squibs' cat."

Harry quirked an eyebrow. "It was you who set the basilisk on the students before, wasn't it? I've heard the story on and off all year. What happened?"

Riddle seemed to love gloating. The students and the teachers listened as this ghost-like wizard explained what he had done - how he had discovered the Chamber of Secrets, learnt about the basilisk resting in hibernation and he had taken control of the creature after learning he was a parselmouth. The basilisk had petrified the muggle-borns before Moaning Myrtle was caught unawares by the gaze of the creature, and then Riddle had framed Hagrid, who even then had the stupid habit of keeping dangerous creatures in his possession.

Finally, Riddle said something that led Harry to surprise everyone. "I am surprised by you, Harry Potter. The Boy-Who-Lived, and Dumbledore's favourite student-,"

"Stop right there. Where did you get the impression I was Dumbledore's favourite student?" Harry asked.

Riddle didn't like being interrupted. "Ginny Weasley has written in my diary you are Dumbledore's protege-,"

"Fuck that," Harry interrupted again with a sneer. "Dumbledore and I have never had a meaningful conversation, well not one where he actually pays attention to what I say. Besides, where did this stupid girl get the impression I was on speaking terms with the man?"

Harry wasn't sure if he should have shown that part of the memory or not, but there was little he could do about it now. But there was the chance everyone might stop and think about calling him Dumbledore's golden boy, but he doubted it.

Riddle couldn't answer the question, so he'd just ignored it. "I'm surprised by you," he commented lightly, but there was something in his voice that said he expected an answer himself. "Gryffindor hero, the Boy-Who-Lived, and yet you didn't actively try to find out who was behind it….?"

Harry just lifted a bored eyebrow. "What makes you think I didn't look? Besides, what would Ginny Weasley know? She barely saw me during the year, so that means you don't have a clue what I was up to. I had hoped the teachers would take their fingers for the first time, but no such luck. As soon as everyone realised I could speak Parseltongue, not bothering to realise I didn't have much choice at the time, what with my wand yanked out of my hand, that was it. Come on, if I was attacking the other students, why would I draw attention to myself in such a way?"

In the real world, Harry looked around the hall, hoping to see everyone realising that he had a point when he had said that. He was happy when he saw that everyone who possessed an ounce of common sense realised that the memory Harry was right, why would he draw attention to himself if he had been the Heir of Slytherin? Many of Harry's detractors looked put out by this, they had wanted him to suffer because of whatever feuds they had with him.

Memory Harry said to Riddle, "Why are you interested in me anyway? I've seen the looks you've sent my way. I should tell you that I don't swing that way."

Everyone in the hall chuckled when Riddle's expression darkened. "I just wanted to find out how a baby with no magical talent was able to defeat the Great wizard in history," Riddle snapped.

"Why are you interested? Unless…?" Memory-Harry's expression darkened slightly, but a feral grin appeared on his face. "No, no way."

"Voldemort is my past, present and future," Riddle smirked before he turned around and whipped out a wand and began writing his name TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE in flaming letters in the thin air. Once he was finished, he waved the wand.

Everyone in the hall screamed in fear as the letters rearranged themselves, so now they read I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.

memory Harry didn't seem scared, in fact, he looked scornful, but Riddle went off in a rant about not using a filthy muggle name to set about conquering the world and becoming the Greatest Sorcerer ever.

In the real world, Harry's eyes flickered over to Malfoy and the other students who appeared interested in becoming the next generation of Voldemort's followers without thinking of other ways of bettering themselves. Malfoy and the others were either shaking their heads in denial at what they'd just learnt, but others looked angry and scornful as they regarded Riddle. Harry didn't know if they were feeling that way because their whole view on the man had changed, but he didn't know if they were thinking that this was just a clever lie to put people off.

Harry concentrated on the memory again.

Memory Harry began to laugh scornfully himself. "Whoever would have believed it? The great and powerful Lord Voldemort, the son of a whore extraordinaire himself, is nothing more than an anticlimactic fuckwit. Behind all those murders, and the snake-like features, you're just a pathetic little boy crying and whining for mummy and daddy. Aw, aren't you cute?" Memory Harry cooed at him before he sneered. "I wonder how your followers would react if they found out their precious lord is nothing more than a con-artist. How many pureblooded families have you murdered or ordered destroyed simply because you don't care about bringing about a new order for the magical world, but you just want to stave off your bloodlust a bit by murdering people?"

"Silence-!"

"SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH! I will make sure you lose what little respect people have for you," Memory Harry promised.

Everyone in the hall was surprised by the sudden shout, but they were just as surprised by the promise that they could see in the twelve-year old's face. Had he….planned for this memory to be shown in front of all of them?

"I wonder how your followers would feel if they found out you are nothing more than a jumped up mudblood yourself, pretending to be something you're not? You said you had a muggle father, Riddle. That means you were raised in the muggle world, right? This gets better by the minute. Oh, this is Christmas! You have no right to call yourself a Lord of pureblood witches and wizards! What did they do, Riddle-me-this? You were sorted into Slytherin, and I've met dozens of little bastards in that house - they look down on anyone who they consider inferior. Did they embrace you with open arms or did they treat you badly?"

Riddle's expression could have been carved out of wax or stone for all the expression it showed. Memory Harry snorted. "They treated you badly, didn't they? You don't care about the pureblood's in this world, do you? What did you do when you discovered your connection to Salazar Slytherin, did you see that as a means to an end? Did you see that connection as justification for launching an all-out war?"

Riddle was furious. It was clear to the onlookers that this conversation was not going the way he had hoped or had anticipated. "I underestimated you, Potter," he whispered. It was like fingernails scraping a blackboard, and they'd been sharpened by a whetstone after being shoved into a bucket of ice water. Everyone shivered at the menacing voice. "I had the impression you were a typical Gryffindor-,"

"Don't make assumptions, Riddle, you'll make yourself into an even bigger dumb arse than you are already."

Riddle's composure snapped and his demeanour shifted, becoming more demonic. Memory Harry pretended to yawn at his theatrics.

"Very well," he growled and he swung round to face a statue of a bearded wizard, and he began hissing in Parseltongue.

"Let's match the power of Lord Voldemort, heir of Salazar Slytherin, against the famous Harry Potter," Riddle said when the basilisk's head appeared, in the mouth of the wizard, but Harry had already swung away.

"Overdramatic gob shite," Memory Harry whispered to himself, bending down to pick up a small pebble and he flicked his wand so he had himself a pair of sunglasses.

In the real world, Harry rolled his eyes as some of the students asked variants of, "Why has he transfigured those things?"

But they were even more surprised when the memory Harry removed from his pocket a knife, which transfigured into a very large machete. The memory showed that there were tunnels and channels leading into the main chamber itself - the passages the basilisk used to get through the school - and was about to go into them before he turned around.

Dumbledore smiled a little bit in the real world, delighted that the boy was finally showing Gryffindor tendencies, but his smile faded when Harry raised his wand in the memory and shouted at the basilisk in parseltongue before firing a few high powered curses aimed straight at the giant creatures' eyes. The basilisk, stunned by the knowledge that its prey was capable of speaking its language, screeched in pain when the eye-bursting curses hit it straight in its left eye, dark blood spilling everywhere. Its body flailed in agony.

Riddle saw that had happened, and he bellowed angrily, "NO!"

The memory Harry ignored him and fired another spell at the basilisk which was still screeching in agony. In the great hall, everyone had clapped their hands to their ears to block the sounds out. Harry waited for the right moment in the memory before firing another barrage towards the snake, firing one spell after another silently.

The teachers were amazed by his skill, and they were muttering to themselves about his ability to cast silently but they were too focused on the memory to really talk about it.

Looking at the memory now made Harry realise he could have used some other spells against the basilisk, but this was as good as it got. The main thing was he had managed to blind it. The audience watched as his memory self-went through the tunnels with the basilisk, who had adapted to losing its sight and its deadliest weapon, slithering behind him, the sound reminded him even more now of a cement mixer just getting started.

They watched as Harry was cornered in another channel but he just stayed still, keeping a tight hold over his wand and his machete before he picked up another pebble and lobbed it with the same hand that held the fingers, but he managed to retain hold of the wand by putting it gently into his mouth so he could throw the stone.

The basilisk's head was so close to Harry that everyone could see the enormously long fangs of the snake, each one as long as a forearm and dripping with dark green venom. The lobbed stone made a loud noise in the other tunnel which attracted the snake's attention, and it slithered out and began slithering forwards in the direction of the sound. Memory Harry closed his eyes when he saw the long snake slither away, and then he went out of the tunnel slowly so he could watch the snake slither away.

Memory Harry stayed where he was for a couple of minutes, eyes darting from one tunnel to the next, expecting the snake to make a comeback before he left the safety of the tunnel with a dead end and went back into the Chamber of Secrets.

Riddle was still standing where he'd been left, and Ginny Weasley was still on the ground. Harry remembered bending down and checking for her pulse to see how long she had left - he had figured out before Riddle was draining off Ginny's life thanks to the diary. Harry was so focused on seeing the memory that he didn't hear what Riddle said, but he knew what the pompous fuck had just said; "In a few moments Ginny Weasley will be dead, and I will cease to be a memory. Lord Voldemort will return. Very. Much. Alive."

The basilisk appeared again out of the pool of water in front of the statue; Harry wondered if the pool had always been there, but he didn't care.

Snatching up the machete, Harry rushed towards the statue and climbing up so then he stood on the head. The basilisk had heard him and had tried to kill him by smashing its head against the rock of the statue, but he'd always managed to avoid being thrown clear off. Harry felt nothing in the real world at the sound of the girls screaming with each impact - they could see he was still alive, but he didn't understand the point behind their screams.

Couldn't they see he was okay?

Everyone in the hall watched as Memory Harry waved the machete around as the basilisk tried attacking him again while he stood on top of the statue's scalp, but the machete barely made an impact against the snake. The only luck he had with the enlarged knife was when he took a strong enough swipe that cut through a few of the basilisk's fangs. The splintered teeth fell out of the creature's mouth and fell down into the pool where they submerged presumably out of sight.

But one landed on the head of the statue, and memory-Harry had taken note of the splintered piece of fang, dripping with the basilisk's venom, but he ignored it and focused on the snake, and used his wand. Everyone in the hall saw the memory Harry lift up his wand and threw the machete to the ground so then the basilisk reared its head back, opening its mouth up and then lashed forwards.

Harry was ready for it, and he lifted the wand up and fired a number of blasting and bone breaking curses down the snake's mouth before finishing off with an overpowered blasting hex, splattering himself with gore, but he ignored it and kept firing off one spell after another before the snake screeched one last time, and then fell back down towards the ground where Riddle was standing, the younger Voldemort was looking between the dead snake and memory Harry with fury.

Memory Harry bent down to pick up the basilisk fang, making sure that the tooth was wrapped on a piece of cloth in case the venom was dangerous to naked flesh, and then he climbed down and headed over to where Riddle was standing, and he knelt down on the ground, taking deep breaths but the more observant people in the audience saw that he wasn't truly tired.

"So, you have murdered Slytherin's basilisk, Potter? No matter. You will be with your dear Mudblood mother soon," Riddle gloated, his voice so low that even now Harry had little idea what the son of a bitch was feeling. The more observant students noticed that whereas before where Riddle had been less solid in parts of his body, time and the fight between Harry and the basilisk had given him the time to become stronger.

Memory Harry looked down at the body of Ginny Weasley, but the look on his face was unreadable to the audience. But Harry remembered what he was feeling, only too well.

Memory Harry's eyes fell upon the black-leather bound diary, and Riddle followed his gaze. In the real world, Harry noticed Dumbledore's interest in the diary, and he wondered if he even knew what it was, because at that point Harry had already worked it out in the past.

"Funny the damage a silly little book could do, isn't it?" Riddle asked conversationally, clearly not thinking Harry was any threat, "Especially in the hands of a silly little girl - Stop, what are you doing?" Riddle asked in sudden fright when he saw Harry pick up the book and take the basilisk fang out from where he'd hidden it, but he was too late to stop Harry even as he darted forwards to try to stop the second year from plunging the fang into the centre of the diary.

"Shut the fuck up!" Memory Harry snapped as he plunged the fang into the diary, again and again, ripping out chunks of aged paper and getting ink all over his hands, even as Riddle suddenly screamed in pain as a hole appeared in his chest, leaking near-blinding white light. "Couldn't you see I wasn't even listening to you? I mean, what were you trying to do, talk me to death?!"

Harry closed the book and plunged the fang into the centre. Riddle screamed loudly in agony, clutching his face even as the light tore rips through his body, it was like watching a 3d cartoon being dissolved with acid on the inside, Riddle was falling apart. Harry ripped the fang out of the front of the diary and he placed the fang on the ground before he slammed the diary through it, impaling the diary and even more ink spurted out of the book and spilt on the ground.

"Take some advice," Memory Harry called out to the screaming Riddle, who looked like he was about to disappear forever, "next time you have something in your sights if you return from wherever you're going, kill your enemy. Don't talk to them."

Finally, he drove the fang into the diary again.

That was too much for Riddle, and he screamed out one last time and exploded. Harry instinctively covered his face so then the particle of light didn't touch him, but Riddle was gone. With the younger version of his parents' murderer gone, Harry was left alone with peace and quiet all around him for a moment before Ginny woke up.

Harry felt that was a good point for the viewing of the memory to end. "You all know what happened then, I took Miss Weasley up to the Hospital Wing, where she was taken care of and any injury I had was healed. I told the story to Professor Dumbledore, but now all of you know what happened. Do what you like, I don't care anymore, keep calling me a Dark Lord if you wish. I don't care."

Albus Dumbledore stood up, his face all smiles - Harry wondered whether or not the man felt any regret for his own inaction during the year, but he didn't care. "Well done, Harry my boy (why the man had to keep calling him that when he had told the headmaster over and over again, Harry did not know), you put your life in danger to save Miss Weasley," he said, "truly you must care about her."

Whatever Harry had expected from the old wizard, it was not this. For the first time, he wondered what Dumbledore knew about the little plot by the Weasley's to steal what little he had left.

But unlike other witches and wizards, who would have accepted what this annoying wizard said, Harry had no problem putting Dumbledore in his place.

"Excuse me, Professor, but I barely know Ginny Weasley," he pointed out, "why would you think I am interested in her in that manner?"

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Next chapter will see a Weasley confrontation.


	19. Chapter 19 The Weasley Confrontation

I hope you've enjoyed the story so far. Sorry for how long it has taken to update my story.

00000000000000000000000000000000

The Weasley Confrontation.

Harry stared at Dumbledore quizzically, wondering why on Earth he had said that about him caring about Ginny Weasley in that manner. Unlike the other sheeple in the Great Hall, he had no problem pointing out the flaws in that little comment.

"Excuse me, Professor, but I barely know Ginny Weasley, why would you think I am interested in her in that manner?"

Harry didn't bother hiding his quizzical attitude, and he didn't care much about who thought he was just being childish. He knew too many of the witches and wizards in the school, and in the magical world looked up to Dumbledore, but he was not one of them.

Dumbledore blinked in surprise, but everyone in the hall who blindly believed whatever the old wizard said looked just as surprised, and in his peripheral vision Harry could see the younger Weasley children look smug and even hungry as they stared at him while the older ones didn't look too bothered. The twins and their older brother, Perfect Prefect Percy, didn't seem bothered but he had no idea if they were much better at hiding their thoughts compared to Ron and Ginny and knew it wasn't a good idea to show too much emotion about stealing his family fortune, or if they genuinely didn't know about the plan.

Harry wasn't going to bother trying to find out either. He decided he would continue to avoid the Weasley family. He didn't like the idea of socialising with any of them and just be brought down by a betrayal. It was simply a case of his own wellbeing.

"But you risked your own life to save her-?" Dumbledore said, but he was interrupted by Harry. "That may be, but I'd have done that anyway; you were gone, the teachers were relying on Lockhart to save them all, and now we know what kind of man he is," Harry said, sneering at the word 'man' as if the gender didn't apply to Lockhart. "No-one else tried to find the Chamber's entrance. Everyone believed that fop when he claimed he knew where the entrance was, but he was just mindlessly boasting to make himself sound good. Here's a question for you, why didn't you try to find the entrance after it was open for the first time?"

Harry closed his mouth shut, hoping none of the teachers asked him how he had managed to find the Chamber of Secrets; it had been a hard job, and he had found out where it was after chatting to Myrtle who'd told him how she had died after he had hidden himself inside her bathroom to get a bit of time to himself.

Dumbledore was astonished that he was being dressed down by a student, and McGonagall strode forwards angrily. "That is enough from you, Mr Potter."

Harry looked at the teacher, holding back the urge to shake his head at her in contempt. For a whole year, this woman had believed the rumours about him being dark and evil simply because he could speak to snakes. If that wasn't an extra reason to lose any trust in the woman, he didn't know what wasn't.

"You're right, it is. I have no idea where you got the idea I was interested in Ginny Weasley, but I'm going to tell you now that it is not going to happen. I just saved her life, that does not automatically mean anything," Harry said, and he was about to turn away and get out of the hall.

He was starting to wonder if Hogwarts was worth it if the Headmaster was this subtle at match-making but he was stopped when McGonagall called after him. "Mr Potter where are you going?"

"Away from here. I just want to be left in peace."

He needed to get out of the hall. If he was forced to remain in this stupid room with all these stupid students, he might go mad. He wanted to return to the art studio he'd set up and just stay there. He had no desire to spend any more time here anymore.

"You can't just leave," McGonagall shouted after him, "you need to apologise to the Headmaster-."

That caught Harry's attention. "Apologise, for what? All I did was correct him and make him see that just because I save a girl doesn't mean I'm going to marry her. It's not going to happen."

Harry looked around the hall. "Why do you believe him? Why do you all think me saving a girl whom I have never spoken to if going to become my wife or girlfriend after I've just saved her life? That doesn't make any sense to me. I don't know if that is the magical world's way of falling in love, but it is not my way."

During all of this, Ginny Weasley had been growing more and more upset. Her elder twin brothers noticed her getting more and more upset, and they were promising themselves to prank Potter for it. Dumbledore himself saw the girl crying and he instantly decided to capitalise on it.

The old wizard was more than aware of what Molly Weasley had planned, but he genuinely didn't see anything wrong with it though he had no intention of telling her that her grandiose plans of getting Harry to marry her youngest child and therefore getting hold of the Potter fortune had a chance to work. Dumbledore knew Molly well, and he knew she would be resorting to love potions to ensnare the boy. Molly Weasley had never been a subtle woman, and she relied on the same old tactics her Prewitt ancestors had been using for centuries to get cash and a decent meal on the side. Dumbledore was not really surprised that Molly's greedy eyes were focused on Harry's family fortune, which was helped by the boy's orphaned status. But Dumbledore didn't see the point of interfering since he could see several things.

Firstly, despite their questionable morals, the Prewitts had been light sided and Molly Weasley had likewise raised her children to worship him. Secondly, if Harry and Ginny had children, then they would be likewise raised to follow his word as gospel truth, and without Harry Potter's criminal tendencies. Thirdly, with Harry's death the Potter family would forget their rebelliousness where he was concerned, but lastly and more importantly Dumbledore couldn't see the harm in Harry and Ginny having children, though truthfully the boy wouldn't get to know them since he was needed to die because of the Horcrux in his head. After seeing that diary and the scene play out (Dumbledore was annoyed and concerned that Harry had projected that memory of his battle with the basilisk to the entire school since it might make a few of the inquisitive students investigate the magic that went into the diary. He didn't have any intention of letting another witch or wizard make a Horcrux of their own) he was sure Riddle had created Horcruxes.

That meant the boy had to die, but as long as Harry Potter passed on his genes to Ginny Weasley's children, that meant nothing to him in the long run and besides it was all for the Greater Good.

"Mr Potter, you are making Miss Weasley upset with what you are saying, do you not feel remorse for that?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry looked around the hall and he shook his head when he realised that he was alone in this case. "One against an entire school," he shook his head again in irritation, "why am I not surprised? Nothing has changed, has it? Only this time I'm trying to justify the fact I do not love Ginny Weasley. Just tell me something, Professor," Harry looked solemnly at Dumbledore, trying really hard to maintain his control over the disguise over his eye scar, "why are you so fixated on me and Ginny Weasley getting together?"

"Potter men always go for redheads, Harry," Dumbledore said.

Harry laughed scornfully. "Why do I get the feeling you're not giving me the full story? That is not good enough. I don't love Ginny Weasley, and more to the point where does her hair colour come into this, I don't get that? You know what, I don't care; I've had enough of Hogwarts, and the day has not even really started."

Ignoring the teachers Harry just turned his back and walked away, but before he could leave the hall he closed his eyes in frustration when a familiar voice shouted. "Going to run away, Potter? My sister not good enough for you, you snobby git, always parading your money about-!" Weasley shouted, his face turning red while ignoring his siblings' attempts to shut him up.

Harry ignored the bit about Ginny not being good enough for him, but what really annoyed him was how Weasley, who had up until he had joined the crowd and even rallied them on when that mess with the snake in the duelling club had come up, believed he was flaunting his money around.

He turned around, glaring at the thickheaded redhead. "How am I flaunting my money around, Weasley?" he asked evenly.

"You're a rich git!"

Harry held back the urge to roll his eyes at Weasley's lack of wit. "Weasley, read my lips; How. Am. I. Flaunting. My. Money. Around?"

"You just are!" Weasley replied after giving the question serious thought.

Harry snorted. "No, I haven't. You know that the fact you can't even give me a time when I've flaunted my family fortune around proves that."

"You're all talk Potter, I can't believe I tried to be friends with you!" Weasley shouted.

Weasley's little tantrum was slowly but surely annoying Harry, and he was beginning to wonder how best to get this bunch of red-headed morons off his back once and for all, but more importantly make the rest of the school which included Dumbledore and the teachers see he just wanted to be left to his own devices, and then it occurred to him.

Harry was loathing to give up something that was one of his best-kept pieces of blackmail, but if it got the family off his back it might be all he needed. The only trouble with the idea was that it could cause problems in the distant future.

"Do you want to know why I want nothing to do with you?" Harry asked quietly. "Alright, I'll show you."

Harry projected a new memory for the hall to see. The students saw Harry walking towards the entrance to the platform at King's Cross station, but Harry paid them no mind; he was too busy focused on Weasley's face. The red-headed moron was staring at the memory, wondering what was going on; the boy's lack of true long-term memory was staggering, but Harry knew it would come back to him in a few moments.

After watching the younger Harry pick up a bottle of water and some newspapers, the school heard Molly Weasley's voice.

"Same thing every year, packed with muggles, of course," the Weasley matriarch called out loudly.

"What's she doing?"

"Is she mad, speaking magical words in a crowded muggle place?"

Harry smirked out of sight of the Weasley's presently at Hogwarts, who was now looking more and more awkward as the memory played out. When he had decided to show this memory off, he hadn't expected this, but it was better than he could have hoped. Molly Weasley could possibly find herself under a very very uncomfortable amount of attention, and they hadn't even come to the best bit.

But then he realised there was also something there about Dumbledore, but he decided to ignore it. Everyone knew he didn't like Dumbledore, though they were probably in denial about it, he didn't care.

Everyone saw Harry stop in his tracks and look over his shoulder to where the redheads were, led by Molly Weasley.

"Come on, Platform 9 and 3/4s this way," Molly said, ushering her children through the portal to the Hogwarts express.

Dumbledore closed his eyes as he heard the mutterings from his own staff. He had told Molly to be extremely careful and subtle, but then again Molly Weasley had never been subtle; she might be good with potions and planning other people's lives, but she had the approach of a hippogriff in a china shop.

But everyone was surprised when Molly turned to her youngest son. "Now, remember, Ron," the woman said quietly out of earshot of the rest of the family but perfectly audible to the entire hall, "you're to get close to Harry Potter."

Harry turned to gauge the reactions of the Weasleys. The twins were bemused, clearly wondering why this was the reason why he didn't want anything to do with them. Ginny was curious, but it was Ron's reactions that were amusing.

The realisation was appearing in the thick idiots' eyes, but so too was the anger.

But when he turned to gauge the reactions from the Weasley clan, Harry had also studied the expressions on the others' faces; many of them were so surprised Molly Weasley was flouting the Statute of Secrecy, but they were also wondering why he was going out of his way to avoid the family when Molly seemed determined to help him.

Everyone could see the curiosity and caution in the memory Harry's face, and so they kept watching as the memory played out for everyone to hear.

"But why mum?" The boy whined.

Harry smirked; it hadn't been funny before, but hearing Weasley whine was funny, especially since the meaning would become obvious in a few minutes.

Quite a few people in the hall, especially those who knew Weasley so well, and those who didn't like the guy, rolled their eyes at how petulant he sounded.

"Now Ron, I've told you a dozen times, Professor Dumbledore wants us to befriend the poor orphaned boy who has lost everything," Molly chided before putting on a fake tone of sympathy. Meanwhile, Dumbledore closed his eyes and cursed the stupid woman for not doing this in the privacy of her home, and not in a public place.

Again, everyone wondered why that was such a problem, but many in the hall, those who viewed Dumbledore with disdain or distrust, realised there was more to this than simple dislike.

The staff and students at Hogwarts watched as the memory Harry stepped out of sight of the family and pull his hood up over his head (Harry had to edit the memory at that point; the last thing he wanted to do was give Dumbledore even more evidence of his metamorphic abilities, and so just concentrated on the memory to prevent the school from seeing him change his appearance).

It worked. With his memory self out of the way, the staff and students of the school listened on as Molly kept talking.

"But I don't care what Dumbledore wants, all I care about is making the Potters, especially that filthy mudblood bitch Lily pay for denying me the right to have a marriage contract between little Harry and Ginny, that way we can have their fortune," the woman went on, blissfully unaware that soon her words would be replayed for the entertainment of everyone at Hogwarts, "Wouldn't you want that, Ron, to finally have what you've always wanted? Expensive clothes, House elves, money?"

The Weasley's felt sick as they watched the memory play out; some of them hadn't even realised what their mother was plotting, but seeing the memory being shown from Harry Potter's point of view, they could see why he was trying hard to protect himself from the magical world.

Everyone else's reactions were different - many of the Hufflepuff's were already feeling guilty about the way they had accused Potter, but they hadn't expected him to show how he'd killed the basilisk. Seeing the memory of how Harry had first seen the Weasley's even if the encounter itself had not even been known by the family themselves put things into perspective. They had noticed just how far Harry was willing to go to avoid the family, but some of the more perceptive of the House of the Loyal could see that Harry must have been hurt by the fact people were plotting to become his friend only to plan to rob him of what he owned.

The Ravenclaws had definitely noticed the way Potter avoided the Weasley's, as had the Slytherins, but neither of the more darker houses had even worked out the reason. It hadn't really been on the top of their list of priorities to find out, either, but seeing the way Harry Potter had even witnessed Molly Weasley let slip with her plans was offensive to the two houses, for similar but different reasons; the Ravenclaws rolled their eyes collectively and mentally at how stupid the woman was acting. If you ever needed any proof of just how fundamentally stupid the Gryffindors could be, then all you needed to do was watch this scene play out; it was clear that the stupid witch had thought that she was being subtle and cunning by speaking about her plans to her son in the crowded station, but it had clearly not occurred to her that the subject of her talk with Ron was only a few feet away, and listening to every word she was saying.

The Slytherins didn't need any proof of how stupid the Gryffindors were.

They already knew. Many of them had ancient memories stored at their homes, showcasing times when Gryffindors were stupid, Hufflepuffs were too loyal for their own good, and Ravenclaws believing they were smart when they weren't showing an ounce of cunning whatsoever.

But they hadn't expected something like this; many of the Slytherins had been told by their families to never have anything to do with the Weasley's since they were good for nothing blood traitors, but they had never imagined Line Theft to be another reason to distrust the woman, but seeing the way she blabbed her plans in such a wanton manner made all the Slytherins collectively decide to keep away from her, and curse her if she planned to steal anything belonging to their families like it was her Merlin given right.

The staff reactions were also telling.

Severus Snape was furious at the way Lily had been described by the stupid thick bitch, it brought back some truly unpleasant and undesirable memories of how he himself had called Lily a Mudblood. Snape looked at the son of his old friend and love interest and saw that the boy was completely apathetic about showing these events.

The boy had been saving this memory for something special and big. It was simply insurance to keep the Weasley's off his back, that he could understand - Snape had never liked the Weasley's; the twins were talented, he was not denying that, but they were menaces, Percy was a stuck up little sycophant, the girl was bright but she was a clever idiot, and Ronald was a moron, and it was clear to Snape that this was not what the boy had had in mind to hide the memory and show it off.

The rest of the staff were horrified that Molly Weasley was so greedy she would want to steal the fortune of a family that had been brought to the point of extinction, and McGonagall was furious that she had potential thieves in her house, completely oblivious to the fact she had a genuine thief in her house.

But Dumbledore was annoyed. He had known about the plans of Molly Weasley. The woman had decent occlumency barriers, but they had plenty of gaps that were easy enough for a master such as himself to get into, but he hadn't done anything to stop it.

He was more annoyed by the fact Molly had dropped his name into the little chat she'd had with Ronald, but the fact he had a small mention could be beneficial since he could tell everyone that he hadn't had any prior knowledge of the plot. Plausible deniability was such a plus sometimes.

But what Dumbledore was concerned about was just how powerful and focused young Potter was proving to be, and resourceful - he had shown he was a gifted spy and was capable of blending in with the crowd, and that wasn't even beginning to touch the fact he was a metamorphamagus!

What worried him the most was the clear hints that Harry had saved this particular memory for blackmail, still he had to accept it was effective though it was a dark means of ensuring Molly Weasley kept away from him, but after this Dumbledore had no doubt in his mind that some of the students would be contacting their parents about this, and there was nothing he could really do about that.

Even if he could keep the students from the owlery, there was no chance he could wipe their minds before they got home.

Besides, maybe Molly did need to be put out to dry, so he could wash his hands of her. He had given her one simple job, one job, and she had messed up.

Harry shook his head and fast-forwarded the memory when it showed that his attention to the Weasley's had begun to wane, and it now showed Ronald rushing around the train asking where he was.

"Have any of you seen the Boy-Who-Lived yet?" he kept asking, and no matter how many times everyone said no, he never got the hint.

"I remember him doing that," Harry heard a few people mutter as they watched the scene.

"We're going to be best friends," he kept saying.

One of the first years, a girl with round, pretty features and reddish blonde hair snorted, "Yeah, right, Weasley."

Harry cancelled the memory. He sighed and rubbed his eyes, hoping his scarring there was completely invisible. "That's why I don't trust any of the Weasley family; sorry, but guilt by association," he added, looking at Percy, Fred, George, and Ginny, "and that's one of the reasons why I will never marry Ginny."

Harry had no intention of telling them that he had looked in the Hogwarts library and found a book about Love potions and was thinking of investing in a potion that could neutralise them if any of the more foolish but sensible witches in the hall who wouldn't be so stupid to publicly claim they were planning on pouring potions into his food so then he'd fall in "love with them" in case they found a different way.

Ron Weasley had been strangely silent during the time the memory had been shown, but his face had been growing redder and redder with each second, fuelled by the comments and observations of the other students. But hearing what Potter said just then ignited his fury.

"We deserve the money, Potter!" Weasley screamed, shaking off the attempts of his siblings to get him to shut up and not make things any worse than they were right then, "Do you know what it's like having to share your things, of not getting new things like brooms and wands?! Oh, but of course you don't," Weasley sneered as he carelessly waved a hand in Harry's general direction, "you're the Boy Who Lived. You live in a golden castle, waited on by servants and house-elves. You get new broomsticks every month, fresh clothes. You don't know what it means to be poor!"

That was the last straw for Harry. He had been pissed off when Dumbledore had made that 'observation' about how he'd saved Ginny Weasley (if there wasn't a deeper motive there, he would be surprised; for all he knew Dumbledore could have been in on the plot in the first place but he wasn't going to put too much thought into the matter; conspiracy theories caused too many headaches in the long run), but he had gradually calmed down now he had proven to everyone why he would never marry the girl.

But hearing Weasley talk about his life like he knew what it was angered him, but what made him more furious was that Ron had described his own ideal fantasy of what he wanted life to be like. It was too easy to see. Weasley only saw possessions and was too greedy for words, but what he couldn't grasp was how finite the boy was. The idiot was ambitious, there was no denying that, but Harry knew he was too lazy to achieve what he wanted.

BANG!

Weasley and everyone else in the hall jumped when the sound was issued from the tip of Harry's wand.

"Don't talk about being poor, Weasley!" Harry hissed in a manner reminiscent of parseltongue, and the sound of that quiet hiss shut Weasley up. "You know nothing about being poor. Your father works for the Ministry, right? You still have a house, you've got beds, haven't you? Clothes on your back? Food on the table?"

Harry looked at the Weasley's clustered together at the Gryffindor house table. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you already have two older brothers, who are both successful at their jobs? Why don't you ask them to give you a small amount of cash so you can spend it on your school supplies and then pay them back when you get jobs of your own or are above doing something like that? Some of you can get small paying jobs over the summer - you won't get rich, but you'd have a bit more cash to help get you by or are your family so fucking bone-idle you can't even do that? But no, you're more interested in stealing from an orphan, you pathetic dumb-arse."

Harry closed his eyes for a second, sorting through his mind for the appropriate memories - he only hoped he didn't make a habit of this, he hated revealing his memories and showing people what happened in his life over the years like it was a newspaper article.

"Do you want to see what it means to be poor, Weasley? DO YOU!?" Harry asked, spitting the red-headed jerks' name like it was poison before he projected his memories once more. He decided to start with the first night it had been raining.

Everyone who had a shred of sympathy in them in the hall gasped and chattered aloud when they saw a child Harry shivering in a doorway, trying hard to keep warm but finding it next to impossible. McGonagall glared at Dumbledore for neglecting his duties to care for Harry Potter. She wasn't stupid, she knew that the majority of those instruments in the Headmaster's office had been set up to monitor the boy for his own safety, surely he had at least checked up on the poor boy as he'd grown up?

"That was the first night I learnt that the good old days where I'd have some warmth at night were long gone," Harry's voice broke out over the hall, "there were many nights like that to come, and I knew that. Imagine it; your relatives murdered by a psychopath, you manage to get out alive, and you make it to the streets, not knowing who to trust. I didn't trust authority figures," he added the last part, knowing Hermione Granger was probably going to open her mouth or one of the muggle-borns would say he could have gone to the police, "I'd been bullied during my time at school, the teachers weren't any help, neither were my relatives."

Harry showed another memory, this one showing a younger Harry, running away from two older boys who were shouting for him to hand over the food he'd stolen.

"Yeah, I had to steal in order to survive," Harry admitted, "it was mostly for food, but occasionally I had to steal money. If I hadn't then I would have died. I realised quickly that I would have to surrender moral scruples in order to survive."

It wasn't something he would like to admit to anyone in the magical world, really. He didn't really want anyone to know about his background in theft, but in this case he could hopefully convince everyone in the hall that he had not been a thief for a long time.

Harry watched the memory with detachment, knowing what was going to happen next. The two boys caught up with his younger self in the memory as they had in real life, and with each blow they delivered to his body even as they wrestled the food he'd stolen off him, Harry could feel those same blows in the real world, as though he was feeling them all over again.

He showed another few memories of how hard it was for him on the streets - he showed them a few beatings he'd received, how he'd been chased by police officers near Victoria station before he'd travelled down to Brighton, and got caught and sent to that fucking foster home, which he had no intention of showing off now or ever. If he handed anyone that type of information, they could learn a great deal more about what he'd done there.

With each new memory, many of the school gained a bit more insight into Harry Potter's past, but Harry had no idea what they were thinking and he didn't really care that much either. He was tired of these so-called experts telling others they knew everything about him, and he was frustrated with the knowledge they viewed him as a younger Lockhart without thinking there may be more to his life than they thought.

Finally, he showed them a memory where he had been attacked by a bunch of drug dealers. Out of all the memories, he'd shown so far, this particular memory held a special place in his hearts because it showed everyone he could fight back.

Harry remembered that night only too well; he'd been trying to find a place to stay one night, but he'd ended up tossing in a place where drug-dealers were supplied with their goods to sell. Usually, drug-dealers didn't care about someone dossing nearby because most of the tramps on the streets spent all the money they pinched or earned went into a syringe, so they didn't suspect he'd do them in. They needn't have worried - Harry didn't care about people taking drugs, he had more important things to worry about.

Unfortunately, those drug-dealers had been….overzealous, and the moment they realised he was there they'd attacked him without even thinking he'd have the nerve to fight back, but he had. Harry had been building up his strength the entire time he'd been living on the streets, but while he was no Bruce Lee he was fast and strong enough to fight. But while this memory was his favourite because he was able to stand on his own two feet and fight on an even keel, there were too many drug-dealers for him to cope with. In the end, he had fled the place he had hoped to sleep in just to get out with his skin intact.

Harry ended the memories and closed his eyes. The book with the spell he'd found for this nifty bit of spellwork had said clearly overuse of the spell was taxing for the witch or wizard who projected their memories, but he had made three separate projections without giving his magic time to adjust.

Harry sighed and turned away, deciding to ignore any and all overtures from the wizarding world from now on.

"Don't ever call me spoilt again, any of you," he whispered as he walked out of the hall.

He didn't care if they heard him.

000000000000000000000000000000000

As he sat in the rattling carriage as the train headed for King's Cross, Harry was sitting reading a book. He was completely alone. It had been hard to find a compartment he could call his own, but he was glad of the privacy since it meant he could enjoy his old favourite pastime of reading. As he read the book, Harry thought about the last few days.

Lucius Malfoy had come to the school, blustering about Dumbledore being back in charge, but he'd left quickly and after seeing for himself that Malfoy Senior was just an older version of his own son, who was a shade more cunning, which meant there might be hope that Slytherins would be in the family's future, but the man was still a blustering moron in Harry's eyes.

What Harry had not anticipated was how many students in the school had seen the memory of Molly Weasley plotting with Ronald to befriend him and butter him up, because not long afterwards the papers were full of 'reports' of the Weasley's planning to steal other fortunes, and there were even 'witnesses' who claimed Molly Weasley to have made unfair demands of them.

Harry hadn't really bothered with the Weasley's at Hogwarts for the last few days, in fact, he had gone out of his way to avoid most if not all of the students at the school for good reason. He had revealed virtually his entire past, and that had been the last thing he had wanted to do, but he had become sick and tired of people claiming he was a fame-obsessed moron without getting their facts straight and he needed to get the Weasley's off his back.

But as the express drew closer to London, Harry wondered what was going to happen next term. But as he stood up, he stood in front of one of the mirrors affixed to the walls of the compartment, and he closed his eyes, mentally visualising the appearance he wanted to take before he opened his eyes and smiled at his appearance. He had dark blonde hair in this appearance, with grey eyes and he looked fairly thin and rather unassuming before he cast a notice-me-not spell over himself and checked his clothes and things for tracking charms. Surprise, surprise - there were quite a few of his clothes, making him growl in anger.

Looking out of the window, he was just happy he had checked before he'd gotten off the train. Harry wondered who'd cast them; he couldn't keep blaming Dumbledore, even if the old wizard was a control freak but there were other people who would be especially pleased to track him down.

Harry sighed and waved his wand over his possessions and clothes before checking over himself in case there was one he'd missed before becoming satisfied he'd gotten them all.

When he got off the train, he saw the Weasley matriarch and a man who was balding with glasses but had enough red hair of his own to make it obvious he was the head of the Weasley tribe. Molly Weasley looked like she had spent the last few days being incandescent with rage, but judging by the ashamed looks her husband was sending her way, her anger was nothing compared to his. Harry felt sorry for the poor man, but since his wife was someone who wanted to commit line-theft, his sympathy with the family was limited.

Personally, Harry didn't care about theft. He had spent a long period of his life as a thief, and since his relatives had encouraged, actually encouraged, him to become a thief (he knew they hadn't meant to do that, but still they had encouraged him) he had needed to learn how to take things from other people just to survive. Some people might call him a hypocrite for his views, but Harry was offended that someone would try to steal from an orphan. Even he wouldn't do that.

When he had lived in the foster home, he had seen along with everyone else Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and while some of the film was unrealistic (surely if a kid threw bricks down into a street, they would hit with enough force to shatter someone's skull?), one thing had stood out; the anger he had felt when he saw that Marv and his own namesake, played by Joe Pesci, planned to steal the charity money for a Children's hospital from a toy shop, but what he had really been angry with had been that bit where Kevin McAllister waved up to that kid in the window of the hospital.

Seeing that had brought home to Harry Potter that he would never steal from an orphan because he was an orphan himself and he had seen and experienced for himself just how rough things were for orphans in abusive homes. It would be like taking the food out of the mouths of a hundred orphaned babies.

Harry sighed and walked away from the platform. He had a feeling he would have to deal with Molly Weasley at some point in the future, but for now, he was content to simply avoid her.

000000000000000000000000

Author's note - In this story, Albus Dumbledore is not an evil villain, but he does have a one-track mind when it comes to the short-term. He looks to the long-term and how he wants things to go. In his mind, the death of Harry because of the scar Horcrux, and rewards of the Potter fortune to them means they get a reward.


	20. Chapter 20 Business as Usual

I don't own Harry Potter.

For those of you who have said my story is a disappointment, if you feeling so strongly about that, believing that Harry does not make mistakes, then I am sorry my story doesn't satisfy you. If you don't like it then don't read it - Harry does make mistakes, he made a big one when he accidentally showed off his metamorphic powers to Hagrid, who's blabbed it to Dumbledore, but there are other mistakes in his future.

For those who call my story a disappointment and haven't even written a story - I am not going to bother calling you out because I imagine there are others - you have the nerve to say that to me. Write a story of your own and see how it goes.

For those who like my story, thank you.

* * *

Business as usual.

Harry took another sip of coffee out of his cup as he studied the entrance of the building, waiting for his mark to make his appearance. It had been a few days after he'd left Hogwarts for the summer holidays, and he had lost whatever tense feeling he had when he was back in the muggle world without the Weasley family or the magical world to bother him. He was surprised and yet pleased to find the connections he had made towards a certain occupation had come out trumps.

Months ago Harry had looked even deeper into branching out as an assassin - he already had the experience, and besides even if you killed bent businessmen there were bound to be jungle drums rumbling, some with horror that they might be next, and others with delight someone was out there willing to kill thorns in their sides for money since cash was a prime motivator and with that they could see him as a colleague. But others would be annoyed because he, a relative unknown and inexperienced newcomer happened to be on their patch, but he didn't care about that since you had to start somewhere, right?

But he didn't care about those, he didn't care if he had to make rivalries between other assassins who were more experienced than he was, he didn't care if he had to find them and kill them himself in order to make it clear to the others he was just as ruthless as they were, though he hoped it didn't come to that. It was simply common sense to not off your competitors, but Harry was indifferent to them and their existence.

He had enough work to do as it was; as soon as he left Hogwarts in the next few years after he had racked up a few more assassinations and heists in his repertoire, he could find someone who could help him branch out a bit and gain more contacts and possibilities. It was a grim sort of life, sometimes it frightened him that he was even using murder as a means of making cash, but as he had learnt a long time ago you needed to survive, and make a living, or else you would be swallowed up. Besides, the whole world was corrupt, and as much as he hated to admit it to himself, he had been hit by the same corruption his parents had hoped to avoid - probably hoped he'd avoid, he corrected himself, but they had failed.

Harry closed his eyes. He didn't like thinking about his parents, about how weak they had been. If he had had kids, and they had been hunted by a raving madman, he wouldn't have just kept them safe, he would have defied those namby-pamby rules the Ministry dished out and had gone out and slaughtered every Death Eater he could find. He would have wiped out their entire families before going after the madman himself, or at the very least think a few steps ahead, or even a few steps behind, and kept distance between his family and someone like Voldemort. What did his parents do, they made the mistake of depending on the wrong people and stayed too long in just one place.

He shook his head and focused on the building holding the individual he'd been hired to kill. It was a typical day in London; it was pissing it down with rain and the wind was washing all the water into the faces of the muggles in the street in all directions, but he had cast a spell over himself to keep the water from soaking him, and he had cast another spell so then none of the muggles or their security cameras could pick him up. It was amazing how many spells you could get after you raided the Hogwarts library, granted a good number of the books were centuries old, but they did point him in the right directions. He had no intention of stopping just because the books were centuries old, no chance - he was learning spells without the teachers hovering around him. And besides, even if he found a book with the outdated knowledge that seemed a bit unwieldy then he could find another sort of book with the information he needed.

All he had to do was order a few books under assumed names, and using the school owls to pick them up so no-one could track him through them.

Harry had been standing outside the office for the past three hours, but he enjoyed being out in the fresh air even if the air of London was full of pollution which was a mixture of car fumes, cigarette smoke, the gunk spewed out by lorries and airplanes, but it was a stench he had been used to ever since he had come here all those years ago. True, the air up in Scotland was better, but this was familiar territory for Harry.

His current mark was a businessman, but in actual fact, he was a blackmailer. Harry had been hired by one of his victims, obviously. Harry knew of him by reputation already; he was one of those guys you heard about but had no real desire to know. Blackmailers occupied a little niche in the underworld, just like robbers, drug dealers and burglars did, but when they worked, the more lives they ruined, the more powered they gained. The client who had hired him had been frightened, and rightfully so because whatever this blackmailer had on the client, it must have been bad or else he would never have hired someone who was relatively inexperienced in the art of assassination. Harry had never dealt with blackmailers before, but it was easy enough to do; you just found something, some secret no-one in their right mind would want anyone to know, and threaten them for cash with proof of what they had over them.

Harry wondered what his client had done, but until he had caught a glimpse of the guy he couldn't find out; he had a photo of the mark, but that was just not good enough, he needed more, but he was curious about how the client had even gotten it in the first place. Blackmailers didn't normally show their faces to their victims, if they were professionals - only morons would show their faces because their victims could be hard nuts, vicious bastards even a blackmailer would be wary of. He wanted to know where his mark hung out, he also wanted to know more about where he lived, how he lived; did he have a family who thought they knew him but in fact, they didn't? Or did he live alone? Did he like tennis, did he like football, or did he prefer cricket? Sure, those questions were irrelevant, but Harry wanted to find out what had his client so angry about. And scared.

Oh, he had no intention of picking up where the blackmailer had left off, no no no. He just wanted to know what the blackmailer had on his client, and besides if he was lucky he might find out some of the secrets of the blackmailing trade after he dosed the guy up with a truth potion he had picked up during a sojourn to Knockturn alley; the potion had cost him a few galleons, but in the long run it would be worth it, he had no idea which one would be the most profitable for him - sure, stealing money and jewellery from a few banks, houses and jewellery shops was bound to give him a good enough living, but he wasn't sure if he should be a blackmailer or should just stick to assassinations because there was less hassle and there was less chance of him getting killed because he had become so cocky and arrogant one of his victims turned around and sent another killer to off him.

That was one of the chief reasons he was doing this in the first place, he needed to see the man he was being hired to kill, so then when he came back in the morning, it would be a simple task to just put a tracking spell on him and his car and go from there. In the meantime, he was forced to stand in a corner and wait and keep watch, the reassuring feel of his custom wand in his sleeve where it was hidden and out of sight of the muggles coming and going to their everyday lives.

It was strange, Harry thought to himself as he watched them walk past him in both directions, or drove or cycled past him, oblivious to his presence in the little corner he had taken as his own as he kept watch. Ever since he had first ventured into Diagon Alley and collected his supplies for Hogwarts, and then get sorted into his house to become a wizard, Harry had found himself step further away from the rest of the muggle world. He had always been an outsider in both worlds, much to his annoyance, but strangely he didn't really care.

Finally, after another two hours of standing in the corner for his mark to show his face when the rain had eased off, Harry became more alert, shifting out of his nonchalant and comfortable slouch to becoming more poised and stiffer. The mark was in a small crowd of colleagues, laughing at some distant joke. Harry watched him for a second and took out the photo he had of the man. This photo was all his client had to identify the man, he was too scared to do anything else, and that told the young wizard this guy must have something big over his client.

It was the same man - the same chiselled face, lightly tanned which spoke of someone who found the time to indulge in vanity, smart clothes which befit his profession, though Harry was sure his legit job didn't exactly cover the bill. The moment he saw the car, Harry rolled his eyes. Oh, he should have seen it earlier, but it didn't matter. It was typical of guys like this to drive around in a Porsche, or a Ferrari, in this case, it was a Porsche. God, this guy really loved rolling in money.

He crossed the road as quickly as he could so he could get closer to the car the mark drove; it had occurred to him the mark might be flaunting his wealth a bit, so he might have more than one car, and Harry had no intention of playing games, casting tracking spells until he was getting no-where.

After crossing the road so he could get a clearer shot, Harry flicked his wand just before the mark drove away, and no muggle spoiled his casting.

Stage one… a success.

Now all he needed to do was to wait.

0000000000000000000000000000000

The next morning, Harry's mind was not exactly on the job. He had just received a letter from the Ministry of Magic, asking him to attend a meeting with the Minister. Harry had been showered with all kinds of letters ever since the term ended; some of them were from fans of Lockhart, diehard morons who were near fanatics who didn't believe the fop was a con man even with all the evidence that was appearing since it had been revealed.

The news that Lockhart was a con man had been met with mixed results - on the one hand, there were investigators who were coming out with stories that linked Lockhart with a load of other crimes, crimes that were rock hard truth, but it was amazing how many people could ignore the truth.

That led to the other hand - he had received so many cursed letters, so much hate mail. He wasn't offended and angry, oh no, he was overly delighted with the morons for those letters. It was fantastic that, at last, he had people who didn't look at him as some almighty hero.

But this letter… Fudge and the Ministry really knew how to lay it on thick, they really did (Harry had no doubt Fudge had dictated the letter to someone else, the writing was too…..fine to be a bloke, unless Fudge had the same handwriting as a woman, but he could be wrong, though there was nothing wrong with that - Harry didn't have anything against women), but he had no intention of going anywhere near the Ministry.

Harry had received a number of other letters, those from the Daily Prophet and from other publishers who wanted to interview him for newspaper articles and books, but he had refused them; he had seen how quickly the magical world had turned on him, and besides he had been content with the magical world basically treating him as a celebrity but giving him enough distance to breathe.

Not anymore, those days were over. Now he had fake interviews being printed in the Prophet. Libel laws didn't exist in the magical world, but he didn't really care - he had better things to do with his time than wasting his life worrying about how he was perceived by the magical world, and if Fudge wanted to play games with him, then he would be prepared. Harry planned to do something about the media, he had already spent a few days studying the security spells of the Prophet, and they were nonexistent.

The place didn't keep money on site, they always either took the money to Gringotts in the evening, or they either took it home, either way, no one bothered with robbing the Prophet. There was nothing there of interest.

Anyway, back to the letter. Fudge was truly laying it on thick. He really wanted to host a meeting between them except the letter didn't really go into too much depth about what Fudge wanted - it vaguely mentioned the basilisk, but whether it would be a good one or not, Harry couldn't say. He shrugged his shoulders after a few minutes, deciding that Fudge could take a back seat, and besides from what he had heard about the so-called Minister for Magic was anything but good, but he had more important things to do with his time. Harry grabbed his coat and left his home, and headed off back to where his mark was. When he got there, he was pleased that the mark wasn't there, but when he checked the tracking charm he was even more pleased to find the Porsche was returning. He was learning more and more about his mark all the time.

Not only was the guy wealthy, but he was much more careful about it than anyone else in his profession, or drug dealers who were incredibly stupid to flaunt their wealth. After making sure his notice-me-not spell was still applied, Harry followed his mark around the building. It was funny, but after knowing about this guy's reputation, hearing about the lives he'd ruined, Harry would have never believed he was a blackmailer unless he had received a photograph. But Harry still wasn't sure - he had no idea if the client had gotten this wrong, and someone else was the blackmailer responsible for his problems, but he'd find out. He would need to question him personally, spy on him, and visit his house, stuff like that.

Harry spied on the man for the next few days, seeing him do nothing more than go into meetings, get a few parking tickets, but that was as close to the criminal line as he got, but he planned on breaking into the guy's home when he received another letter from the Ministry when he learned nothing about the guy from how he worked. It was amazing how tactless the man could become after a specific period. Fudge's letters were becoming more and more demanding. Harry lifted an eyebrow and frowned a little at how impatient the man was becoming.

Harry sighed as he looked at the letter, his mind already composing a reply that was both polite and yet firm, while all the while wondering if Fudge would back off and accept the fact there was going to be no meeting, but he couldn't work out why Fudge was seemingly desperate for a meeting, but he genuinely didn't care. He had work to do, and the Minister for Magic meant nothing to him.

If Fudge didn't like that, too bad.

00000000000000000000000000000000

Harry looked at the expensive townhouse before him, his eyes scanning the building. The whole neighbourhood was expensive, pricey, real - real estate and extremely prime. The front garden was between messy, unkempt, and yet the lawn in front of the townhouse was beautifully cut, probably by a hired gardener. Harry hated neat gardens, they reminded him of the soulless manner the Dursleys and their holier than thou, prissy perfect, snobby neighbours kept their gardens, treating every single trimmed lawn and pruned rosebush like a competition with the others on the street - oh, look at me - I've trimmed my lawn, I think I've gotten the grass cut another centimetre shorter than what you've done, better you wish you had it that way?

He preferred gardens where you just let everything run rampant and free, and besides things the Dursleys wouldn't have liked was perfect for him.

Sighing, Harry looked up and down the street - it wasn't really necessary, he had cast a notice-me-not spell on himself, but it was always good to get a better feel on the rest of the street - and took out his wand, and approached the townhouse. The place was gleaming like someone took soapy water and polish to the walls and made the place as clean as possible, but he ignored it and approached. He pointed his wand at the lock and a quick charm unlocked the door.

The moment he stepped into the hall, his question of whether or not this guy lived on his own or had a wife and kids was answered; there was a row of shoes and boots neatly lining the floor by the small wooden table where the phone was placed. The hall was a soft forest green. Casting a quick spell on his shoes to remove the dirt, Harry walked through the townhouse.

For the last couple of terms at Hogwarts, Harry had been researching silent casting, using his magic to go with his wishes and direct them into his wand, like a true wizard. He knew, if Granger knew about it (he would need to find out where the little bimbo lived, then he would be able to rob her blind) she would claim it wasn't possible, but that was Hermione Granger. He knew differently. Harry used that skill to gently open drawers and sift through them without leaving a trace - he didn't know how observant this guy was, but it was a wise precaution - but he went through everything; his collection of vinyl records, his book collection, everything. But it wasn't until he moved upstairs that he realised that downstairs was designed to misdirect what was going on upstairs.

The first sign he saw this guy was a blackmailer was when he entered a room which was at odds with the rest of house; the rest of the house was designed to be as normal as possible, well as normal as you can get for a guy trying to portray himself as normal as possible. Everywhere on the downstairs floor was open, but everywhere upstairs was locked except for the top bathroom and toilet. But just because a muggle had locked the doors didn't mean they were a problem for a wizard. Harry unlocked one of the doors first and stepped inside and the moment he did he knew this guy really was a blackmailer.

One half of the room had a few filing cabinets lining the room, with a small black bookcase crammed full of small black diaries which had different coloured labels on them, but he didn't know what they meant and frankly he didn't care. Taking one of the books out, he found it full of entries of people the blackmailer had stalked. Putting the book back and taking out another, he found another load of people whom the blackmailer was stalking. Harry had to admit this guy was good - he was compiling lists and lists of people to blackmail, and as he opened one of the filing cabinets, he could see that when he targeted someone, he examined everything; he must have broken into the houses, rummaged through them, taken a few things to make it look like a simple and mundane burglary when all the time he was taking something much more precious. Or he might have put something in their homes so he could find a problem they'd want to keep secret. That made the most sense in Harry's mind, and as he went through the blackmailers' files he found that some of the people listed in them had mundane issues - some of them had drug problems they were trying to either keep from their families, their friends, or from their jobs. A few of them weren't even targets, they were relatives of people who were important, like senior police officers, reputable doctors, politicians, that sort of thing.

Harry put the last file back - he had seen the proof he needed this guy was a blackmailer, and a damn good one, and he found a few files with labels on them - some of them read 'person of interest' or they read 'definitely a target' or 'don't bother' written on them for some reason, but he rooted through the files and the diaries until he found the relevant parts where his client was mentioned, and he put them in his pockets. Harry didn't care about the others, when the police found the dead body, they could deal with the whole thing when they realised the victim wasn't an innocent.

Once he'd finished with the files and the cabinets, Harry turned his attention to the rest of the office. The place was clean, impossibly clean, and it reminded him of Privet Drive in its exacting neatness, but there was something there, something that that soulless dump had lacked. This place was more orderly than Number Four had been, and on the desk in the same room were a number of black framed pictures showing men in army uniforms. So the blackmailer was a former soldier, eh? Interesting. Harry went back to the filing cabinets and magically removed another one, and read through the contests of one at random before he checked another few. Hmm, he used advanced methods, more advanced than other blackmailers. He used phone tapping for one, meaning he must have been given special training... Harry just sighed and checked the room once more to make sure everything was how he left it, and apart from the file and diary he had in his pocket, the room was clean. He left it and relocked the door and checked the rest of the upper floor.

The next door along was also proof the guy was a blackmailer. In each of the files and diaries were photographs stored inside in black and white. That made sense - you could learn a lot about someone just by looking at a photograph, but some of the photos were a bit too….hardcore, and the last thing anyone with half a brain in their head would take incriminating film to a developer, and only a moron would leave something like that alone for so long in a developer's care.

The developer would only need to take one look at one of his photos, realise what the blackmailer was doing, call the police - if they were legit, of course, unless they tried to blackmail the blackmailer, and the whole thing blew up. This guy wasn't an amateur, but then again he knew that - he knew how to separate his two lives and keep them apart without any effort, and the fact he lived alone helped that.

Harry had never been in a darkroom before so he was understandably fascinated by what he found in the room, and he even thought about taking photography up himself as a course of some kind when he left Hogwarts or took it up as a kind of hobby when he wasn't at the castle. He needed hobbies which didn't involve theft or murder, and besides, he had seen beautiful photographs in black and white over the years.

Hanging over a table with three grey plastic tubs filled with chemicals and simple water were washing lines with photographs pegged to them. In the red lighting of the room, Harry needed to squint to take a good look at them. A few photographs were focused on what looked like ordinary people, but a few more showed the insides of houses, flats, townhouses, small businesses, places like that. There were labels on them, with numbers written in dark ink, but Harry didn't have the time to sort through the code now.

He was too busy studying the photographs that were here. There were a few which were incriminating - one, showed a man kissing a woman - but on closer inspection she was a schoolgirl, but he had a wedding ring on his finger, and the next photograph along showed the same man standing next to a woman about his age, dressed in the uniform of a high ranking police officer. This blackmailer certainly knew how to choose his victims, Harry thought to himself, but he wondered if the man was a copper himself - it would make sense if he was, or at the very least the blackmailer was targeting people who were big in the world and decided to go for their spouses.

After checking out the rest of the photos, Harry left the photo lab and relocked the door and checked out another room. This one was a bedroom - it was sparsely decorated. There was just a bed, double, well made and neatly kept. There was a plain white wardrobe in the corner of the room with a mirror on it. Harry walked over to it and opened the door. Nothing inside. Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, Harry looked around the room again, realising this place, this particular room, just didn't make sense - this blackmailer lived alone, he had a photo lab with a door that was locked at all times, an office containing filing cabinets and diaries containing details of the people he was targeting. Yet he was in a bedroom that was clearly left out for someone, and it wasn't even the blackmailer's bedroom. He could see it.

No, this room was for something else. Harry looked around the room carefully, and for the next half an hour he studied every square inch of the room, and it wasn't until he looked around the ceiling and the walls that he saw a thick cable leading away from a light on the ceiling and trailed off around the edge of the room, and led outwards. Harry frowned as he looked at it before he sighed and flicked his wand at the lamp. The dome came off and revealed a camera. Harry flicked his wand again and the dome was put back on. He then followed the cable all the way down the stairs and saw that it went down into the basement of the townhouse.

The cable led into a TV bracketed into the wall, but right in front was a metal chair, which he saw was bolted to the concentre floor. Harry looked between the chair and the TV, getting it quickly that the blackmailer must restrain people in this chair and force them to watch whatever was on the TV. But why? What was the point? Harry shook his head and walked out of the basement, but with each step he took up the stairs to head back to the upper floor, he realised what the point was.

The blackmailer must be targeting people, married couples who had an image to maintain. Well, if they wanted to continue their lives then they would need to pay the blackmailer off after he'd had sex with one of them. It just seemed a bit down-market for a blackmailer. Harry would have expected a man who had worked for the army would have gone after bigger people, but the only people of that calibre were either businessmen or police officers unless there were others in those files upstairs but he didn't have the time to go through them.

Harry went back upstairs and took another look in that bedroom, but didn't find anything else, so he began looking in the master bedroom. In the wardrobe was an old army uniform, so he was interested in not throwing away his past. Some of the clothes in the wardrobe must cost thousands of pounds, while others looked like they came cheap at a car boot sale, but many of the clothes were not too dissimilar to what himself wore - tough, serviceable, loose and comfortable.

There were a few books in the room, but they weren't connected to the blackmailing. Harry checked his watch. He had been here for two hours already, and he had virtually exhausted his search but he looked in the bathroom and he checked the back garden of the house, which much more of a mess compared to the front garden, but there was not a shed he could check. The kitchen was stocked full of expensive food, so this guy really lived well but that was not surprising.

Leaving the house though he planned to come back - Harry didn't know what this blackmailer was going to be doing, but he didn't care; he wasn't going to spend an entire evening fucking around in this place, with nothing to do, while he waited for a blackmailer - Harry headed off into the city. There was a movie on at a cinema, three hours long. If that didn't kill time, he didn't know what wouldn't.

0000000000000000000000000000000000

After the movie, Harry returned to his home and started to prepare dinner. It was just a simple meal - meat, vegetables, rice, gravy, with stewed apples and ice cream for pudding - while he thought about the case. When he had returned home, he had received a call from the client, demanding an update on the assassination.

Well, contract killing.

Same difference.

Harry didn't bother answering the message - there was little point since he planned to kill the blackmailer tonight anyway, well after he had gotten some answers from him first. As he ate his meal and watching the telly, Harry was annoyed when he realised the Ministry had sent him yet another letter. Fudge didn't know when to quit, did he? Harry studied the letter, only he cast a few spells on it. Oh, come on! There were tracking spells on them, set to trigger the moment he opened the letter. Harry sighed and flicked his wand to get rid of them. The letter didn't contain anything Harry didn't expect - Fudge was being more demanding, throwing away politeness and replacing it with rudeness.

Did the little moron really think he wasn't reading the newspapers? Fudge was having articles published which called a great deal of what happened in the Chamber of Secrets into question, and yet all the time he wanted to have a meeting. Harry hadn't really been paying much attention, being more focused on his contract to spare much thought to Fudge, but he had been reading the prophet.

Harry sighed and threw the letter away in disgust. The last line was more than a little threatening, it basically said if he didn't agree to a meeting then he would regret it. Harry didn't like being threatened especially by little bastards like Fudge, but he wondered just what the Minister had in mind when he said he would regret it.

After cleaning up, Harry went out again and headed to the townhouse the blackmailer lived in, and the moment he arrived he saw that that Porsche was parked outside, the lights were on so he was in. Casting another notice-me-not spell on himself, he walked towards the front door and unlocked the door again - ah, he loved magic, infinitely better than normal lock-picking methods and more quieter - and stepped into the house. But he took off the notice-me-not spell, and then he kicked the door hard right into its hinges.

Hearing the sound of a chair being thrown back, Harry waited for the blackmailer to come to him. Finally, he arrived, and at the sight of the young kid in his house, the blackmailer gaped at him in surprise. "Who the hell are you, what the hell are you doing in my house?!"

Harry took out a photograph of his client. "Why are you blackmailing this guy?"

The blackmailer looked at the photo and then the young wizard, though he had no way of knowing that Harry had magic. "Why the fuck should I tell you? You've just broken into my home. I've got the right to kill you-."

Harry flicked his wand, and the blackmailer was knocked off his feet. "You will find that hard to do," Harry remarked as the blackmailer breathed in and out, stunned that he had ended up on the ground, "because I'm in control. You are not. That's the trouble with you blackmailers, you feel you are in control all the time. Ah ah," he chided when the blackmailer tried to leap to his feet, and with another flick, he was back on the ground with a groan. "Don't get up. Now answer me, why are you going after this guy?"

"Why should I tell you?"

Harry sighed. "Oh, for crying out loud," he whispered, and he flicked the wand again and levitated the man off the ground, who shouted in shock at being lifted off the ground and was taken to the living room where he was thrown in a chair. "Look, I'm just doing a job, but I want to know more; I've got photos and the diary he's mentioned in, but I want to know more. You've got details on the lives of everyone, but I checked. He is not really mentioned at all. You may as well tell me, or it will become painful."

The blackmailer was defiant. Harry sighed and he fired off a few stinging spells at him. The blackmailer yelped in pain. "Ow! Fuck! How the hell did you do that?!"

"Just answer my questions," Harry said under his breath, "why are you after him?"

He sent another couple of stinging spells - he wished he knew more about this unforgivable curse that caused pain, even if the long-term effects were nasty, but it would make little fuckers like this guy talk - and the blackmailer spoke, "Okay, okay, stop doing that….freak stuff!"

All rational thought left Harry at that moment, and the blackmailer realised he had made a fatal mistake. "N-no, please!" he squealed, all bravado and army training missing, but it was too late. He screamed as Harry cast a bone-breaking spell at his ankle.

"Never use that word!" Harry snapped. "Now, for the hundredth time, tell me why you are stalking this man!"

The blackmailer sobbed in agony, but he nodded. "Okay, okay," he got out, "I'll tell you. We were both in the army, and we were both recruited by Army intelligence. They trained us both."

"And then you left, became a blackmailer? How did you become a blackmailer anyway?"

The blackmailer grinned. "I loved secrets, and I loved finding out what other people were hiding. Just 'cause I joined the army didn't mean I lost that hobby. Anyway, he," the blackmailer spat the word, as if refusing to speak his name, "took the training, but he went into the business to make people who got into too much debt or other things along those lines to disappear. They help fake their deaths, and then they smuggle them abroad."

"Why blackmail him for that?"

The blackmailer grinned. "My buddy has a bad habit of gambling. He loves money. We split up after we left the army," he explained, "I went into blackmailing, but he went into the game where you fake someone's death and arrange a life for them somewhere else, but that wasn't good enough for him. I only met him again by chance. One of my targets fled the country after he had an accident, but I did some investigating and found my old buddy in the middle of it."

Harry shook his head. "So, he saw you and he realised you could blow the whistle on what was going on. What then?"

"I'd watch as he either got himself killed, or he fled the country," the blackmailer grinned again. "He would give their names to the people chasing them after a while."

Harry closed his eyes. Why was he screwing up with his clients? Maybe he should just stick to theft and the occasional unpaid for murder. He was just getting irritated by this. A sound caught his attention, and he opened his eyes and saw that the blackmailer had hauled himself out of his chair, and was preparing to leap even with the busted ankle. Shit. Harry cursed himself for not bothering to tie him down, and he quickly lifted his wand and slashed it, and the blackmailer suddenly choked as his throat was slashed open and blood began spurting out, and he began to choke and writhe on the floor of his own townhouse, blood spilling everywhere.

And then he lay still.

Harry closed his eyes and took out his camera, and a photo popped out instantly. With the proof of the killing done so he could earn and count his cash, Harry left the townhouse furiously. He had had enough. Maybe it was time to pack in the assassination game. It was just becoming too tedious.

00000000000000000000000

Just as he was thinking that Harry's blood went cold when he heard a familiar sound.

Wizards were apparating outside, he could hear them through the door and when he ran upstairs from where it was hopefully dark and that he could get a higher vantage point without them seeing him. When he reached the top floor in just moments, he rushed to one of the front rooms on the upper landing, and peered out through the window, he could see their outlines as they appeared. There were about five of them, and he could just make out the colour of their robes as they warded the area off from prying eyes.

Red robes.

Aurors.

Oh no. Harry opened the window slightly, hoping that the sound wouldn't alert the wizards, and he put his ears against the crack. He could just hear them.

"Alright, listen up," one of the Aurors said to the others, "there have been a number of spells being used in this place. An unlocking spell, a levitation charm among others, but more seriously was a bone-breaking curse. The perp behind it has probably gotten away, put it down to Fudge's budget cuts, but now we're here, we need to work fast in case the wizard behind this is still here."

Harry pulled away from the window, cursing his own stupidity. He had thought that the custom wand he owned would be undetectable, but how had they found him? He shook his head. Now was not the time to get into a stupid case of wrangling. He looked out of the window and saw that the wizards were approaching the house he was in. They knew where the magic had come from. He wouldn't have long to get out of here and he knew if they found him, Boy Who Lived or not, he would find himself in prison for murder.

Harry rushed downstairs as quietly as he could, paying as much attention to the door as possible - he toyed with the idea of locking the door to slow them down, but he quickly discounted the idea. They were looking for a wizard and if he cast another spell then they might call in for backup. He would never be able to escape. Hopefully, after they checked the house and the garden they would realise he wasn't here, and then they would leave, but he would need to put some distance between them.

Fortunately for him, the key to the back door was in the lock. But the moment he was out, thankful he was wearing gloves as a precaution for when the muggle police arrived, knowing from experience the coppers would be looking for fingerprints though he hoped that the DMLE didn't have a clue about forensics meaning they would trash the entire place and give their investigation a plethora of suspects they would never be able to find in a million years, he rushed to the fence. It was a high wooden fence.

Piece of cake.

Harry glanced over his shoulder. There was no sign yet that the Aurors sent by the DMLE had made it this far, but he wasn't going to give them the chance to find him, so he began to climb over the top of the fence. To his shame, it took him a few minutes to clamber over the fence and find strong footholds - damn, he was out of practice. He had been fantastic at climbing thanks to his thin, skinny frame when he had been younger and had been involved in house burglaries, but now he was becoming more dependent on his magic to help him, he was getting out of practice and slower than he had been before. He remembered how he had managed to escape from an angry house owner who'd seen him clambering over his fence, but he had only managed to escape because of his light build.

He was getting too old and too heavy.

Harry swore to find a number of fences of different makes and clamber over them before the summer was out, and time himself. He didn't want to be caught out like this again, because of his own reckless stupidity. He used his annoyance of himself for using a bone-breaking spell and using too much magic in one place to give him the strength to climb over the fence and make it to the next garden. As he clambered over the top and jumped down, Harry kept very still for a second, listening.

Nothing. They still hadn't arrived, but he didn't know if the DMLE had even heard of murderers fleeing through the backdoor and vaulting over a fence before. If they had then they were incredibly slow - the muggle coppers had learnt long ago to run through a house to check the back garden and the adjacent ones to see if there was anyone lurking nearby.

After releasing a long, slow breath Harry took a look around the garden and then he went to the back wall. It wasn't really high up. There was a door built into the wall, and Harry quickly unlocked it and peered through it. The door opened up to a back alley that ran down the back of the gardens. It was probably meant to be used by the garbage men so then the residents didn't have to look at their own filth.

Fuck! He hadn't even done a good enough job of casing the entire joint. He could have sneaked in through the back, but he had been so full of himself, his need to be oh so clever as to think his use of magic would make a difference when it came to breaking and entering, thieving and then murdering.

Sometimes the muggle way was the best.

Harry shook his head angrily, and he looked over his shoulder when he thought he heard voices coming from the garden he'd just left. The DMLE had finally decided to check out the back garden, but he doubted they would find anything. Harry closed the door he'd just unlocked and crouched down by the fence and waited, all the time hoping the notice-me-not spells he'd cast on himself would last long enough for him to hide. He didn't dare risk using the door in the wall in case one of them found the door in the garden and checked to see if he was running away from the scene of his murder.

Later on, he would kick himself for thinking that way since he didn't hear any sign of them checking that far down, but they were checking the garden and even if they weren't looking over the fence they would probably notice the door open to the alley.

Harry stayed crouched down for over two hours, trying hard to ignore the cramp that had started to hurt in his legs and feet, but he didn't dare move and make any noise. Finally, he stood up when he was sure the Aurors were gone, wincing at the sensation of the cramp shooting through his legs like daggers, and he crept over to the door leading to the alley. He kept stopping to look over his shoulders to make sure none of the DMLE team was waiting for him to make such a move, but he didn't see any sign and he slowly opened the door, stopping from time to time in case someone appeared from nowhere, and he finally went down the alleyway. He closed the door.

0000000000000000000000000

Harry sighed with relief when he reached the door to his home.

He had just spent an awful night getting here, and not for the first time he was pleased with the London Underground with its network of tunnels crisscrossing under the streets, but he was mentally and physically exhausted. He had spent most of the Tube journey mentally kicking himself for using those dangerous spells and revealing his presence to the DMLE. But he was also glad by the encounter.

Not only had it shown him that even with magic he had made some stupid and unintentional mistakes, but he had also missed the cardinal rules he had picked up over the years when looking for someone to burgle - check out the area for ways to escape, never draw attention to yourself. He had broken both rules tonight, worse he had used his magic too much, and he had alerted the DMLE that a wizard was murdering muggles.

There was no chance at all that the DMLE would let that go unchecked.

Harry had studied the Statute of Secrecy, and while he couldn't help but wonder who the statute protected in the long run, and knew if a wizard went after muggles then the Ministry was required, under the law, to track them down. Harry closed his eyes as he leaned against the mirror. He had the opportunity to make sure he didn't make any mistakes. In a way tonight, although being a disaster, had actually given him a wakeup call.

There was no chance he could stick to the assassination game after tonight. No way. He needed magic in order to kill people, although he was still good with a knife, and using a gun wasn't exactly a biggie. But he needed magic to give that exotic touch, but now he was beginning to think he was out of his depth when it came to an assassination. Perhaps he was right. He had only jumped into the assassination game to make a quick buck, but now he could see he had made a mistake.

Harry shrugged his shoulders. He had had problems looking for jobs where he could kill someone, and frankly, he was tired. Besides, while he could kill someone easily, he just wasn't good at finding the right jobs and he always seemed to have the same problem - either he didn't have the right information, or some other factor tripped him up, and that had nearly resulted in his arrest. Earlier tonight he had been wishing he could cast the Unforgivable Curses, but now he was thankful he didn't know how to cast them, or he would have been thrown into prison. As he brushed his teeth to prepare for bed, Harry knew he would confront that guy tomorrow about a payment and hoped he paid up, because if he didn't there would be hell to pay.

As he prepared a cup of hot chocolate, Harry thought about his life choices, and he realised there and then he had become too dependent on magic. He had often thought that families like the Malfoys or people like Granger became too enamoured by magic and what it could do for them, but he had fallen into that trap himself and because of his recklessness tonight he had very nearly lost his freedom.

He had to keep his magic to a minimum now.

He would need to relearn how to climb fences and get himself back into that game again so he wouldn't be caught out ever again.

He would need to once more case the joints.

Lastly, he would have to stop killing people and getting cash back for it.

Harry got into bed and turned out the light after drinking some of his hot chocolate.


	21. Chapter 21 NOTICE

Hello, everyone!

I want to say….to those who have supported this story, liked it, reviewed it nicely, and basically given me ideas on what I could add and pointing little errors out…. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

To those who have basically told me that my story is crap, particularly those who can't be bothered to sit down and spend time and effort writing their own stories, well you've half won.

I had sworn never to do this to one of my current stories, but unfortunately I have lost my interest in The Metamorph. When I planned this story originally, I had hoped to write about a version of Harry Potter who had wised up to what the Dursleys were doing to him and had left them after killing them. The idea was to write about a history of an independent Harry who could change his appearance, but unfortunately, I fell into several traps.

I had made him too big.

I had given him a god complex.

Harry made the same mistakes.

I did what many authors do - start with an idea, and basically make stuff up as I go along. Oh, I had a plan, believe it or not, and I did have several things planned. But overall most of the chapters had stuff made up, though I did love the way he tackled Lockhart and the memory projection of the battle in the chamber was good.

I made it too complicated. As a result, several have told me to rewrite it.

Not going to happen. I don't have the time to go back and rewrite or delete old chapters. I have a lot on my plate at the moment, and rewriting a story when I've got other stories in the works, stories I REALLY want to focus my time on is not going to work. No, it's best to abandon this story now and upload something different.

I am going to put up a new story called "The Thief" and several of the plot lines within The Metamorph will be added through some things will be different.

He ran away from Number 4 rather than kill the Dursleys, so there will be a chapter where they get their comeuppance.

He still lived on the streets - for a bit, but he didn't find out he was a wizard until he was eleven.

The story will be set when Harry is much older, and he's defeated Voldemort.

The first chapter will be up soon.

Kind regards.


	22. Chapter 22

My new replacement for the Metamorph is up, it's called 'The Thief.'

Kind regards.


End file.
